
mpRED 
T, 
GRENFELL 





Class __£_lliix 

Book , ■ ~'^ 

Copyright }^^ 

, COPYRIGHT deposit: 



DOWN to The SEA 



By Wilfred T. Grenfell 



The Harvest of the Sea 

A Tale of Both Sides of the Atlan- 
tic. Illustrated, 12mo, cloth, 
net $1.00. 



"Relates the fife of the North 
Sea fishermen on the now famous 
Dogger Bank ; the cruel appren- 
ticeship, the bitter life, the gal- 
lant deeds of courage and of sea- 
manship, the evils of drink, the 
work of the deep sea mission. 
These are real sea tales that 
will appeal to every one, and are 
told admirably. " 

— Henu York Sun. 




A DISTINGUISHED VISITOR 

Comnianckr Ptary and Dr. Grenfell on the deck of the Rooscfdl on 

the former's return from the Pole 



Down to The Sea 



YARNS FROM 
rHE LABRADOR 



By 

Wilfred T. Grenfell 
M.D., C.M.G. 



ILLUSTRATED 




New Tork Chicago Toronto 

Fleming H. Revel I Company 

London and Edinburgh 






Copyright, 1910, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 



Permission is acknowledged to reprint these sketches from 
The Century, Putnam's, Leslie's, 
The Toronto University Student, 
The Congregationalist, The Outlook. 



New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago : 80 Wabash Avenue 
Toronto: 35 Richmond St. W. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 



iCI.A2718;'8 



CONTENTS 



I. UNDER THE NORTHERN LIGHTS 

II. 'TIS DOGGED AS DOES IT . 

III. DANNY'S DELIVERANCE . 

IV. THE OPTIMIST . 

V. THE MATE OF THE WILD 

FLOWER .... 

VI. "GUI BONO" . - . 

VII. QUEER PROBLEMS FOR A MIS 

SIONARY .... 

VIII. EVERY LITTLE HELPS 

IX. KINDLY HEARTS ON UNKINDLY 

SHORES .... 

X. THE SKIPPER'S YARN . 

XI. THERE HIS SERVANTS SERVE 

HIM 

XII. A PHYSICIAN IN THE ARCTIC 

XIII. FRIENDS AND FOES OF THE 

LABRADOR 

XIV. THE CLOSE OF OPEN WATER 



II 

36 
66 

78 

96 
112 

127 
141 

153 
165 

171 
183 

201 

217 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

A Distinguished Visitor . . . Opposite Title 

The Native Eskimo — Still almost prehistoric in 

their customs . . . . . 14 

I Have Most Faith in Unwritten Sermons . 34 

The Gloomy Faces of Great Beetling Cliffs . 66 

Great Masses of Ice Were Day by Day Increas- 
ing in Size ..... 70 
They Had a Good Six Hundred Pounds to Haul 80 
It Was a Veritable Day of Sick Calls . . 114 
A Labrador Four-in-Hand . . . .150 
The Physician in the Labrador . . .184 
A Doctor is Unable to Specialize on this Coast . 192 
Trusted Friends of the Labrador . . . 208 
"Doesn't Look Exactly Like a Pleasure Yacht" 222 



I. 

The Northern Lights. 

AS a country for summer holidays, Lab- 
rador has not yet been taken seriously. 
Yet it attracts many scientists who 
visit it for its unique opportunities for special 
work. In the summer of 1905, Elihu Root, 
Secretary of State, came in search of that 
absolute rest which is impossible in any coun- 
try where telephones and the other appurte- 
nances of civilization have intruded. 

From several points of view, also, Labrador 
affords attractions offered by no other country 
so near at hand. The scenery of tlie southern 
coast is modified by the fact that in the glacial 
period the ice-cap smoothed and rounded the 
mountain peaks, while the cliffs are seldom 
five hundred feet in height. In the north, 
however, the mountain-tops apparently always 
reared their heads above the ice-stream, and 

II 



12 DOWN to The SEA 

for its high cliffs and virgin peaks the coast- 
line is unrivaled anywhere in the world. The 
fact that the high land runs right out to the 
Atlantic seaboard does not prevent its afford- 
ing most imposing fiords winding away among 
its fastnesses. For the thundering of the rest- 
less Atlantic, the grinding masses of the polar 
ice, which assail its bulwarks for eight months 
out of twelve, and the iron frost of its terrible 
winters, have proved to be workmen that even 
its adamantine rocks have been unable to with- 
stand. 

Thus there have been carved out fiords such 
as that of Nakvak, which runs inland for 
thirty miles. The cliffs on each side rise direct 
from the narrow gorge, which is itself only a 
mile in width, to an average of about two 
thousand feet, the deep blue water affording 
anchorage so close in under the cliffs that 
one would suppose it bottomless elsewhere. 
Though these rocks are the basal rocks of the 
earth's skeleton, and are entirely barren of 
trees and shrubs — or, indeed, of any fossil 
either, — their sternness is mitigated by the 
abundant carpet bedding of brilliant-colored 
lichens and the numerous small subarctic flora 
to be found up to their highest peaks. To the 
north of this inlet are still loftier mountains. 



The NORTHERN LIGHTS 13 

the heights of which have not yet been meas- 
ured, and the summits of which have never 
yet yielded to the foot of man. A cluster 
known as the "Four Peaks" has been variously 
estimated up to six thousand feet in height. 

There is no country in the world where the 
glories of the aurora borealis can so frequently 
be enjoyed. The weird "northern lights," 
called by the Eskimo "the spirits of the dead 
at play," are seen dancing in the sky on almost 
every clear night. The glorious red morning 
light, stealing over these rugged peaks, and 
steeping, in blood, as it were, the pinnacles of 
the loftiest icebergs in the world, forms a 
contrast with the deep blue of the ocean and 
the glistening white in a way that will hold 
the dullest spellbound. The endless stream of 
fantastic icebergs at all times enlivens the 
monotony of a boundless ocean. 

Though cruising in north Labrador is at 
present made difficult by the poor survey of 
the coast, it is also made delightful to the 
amateur sailor by the countless natural harbors, 
never more than a few miles apart, and by 
the thousands of outlying islands, which per- 
mit almost one-fourth of the coast to be vis- 
ited in perfectly smooth water, the great swell 
from the Atlantic being shouldered off by the 



14 DOW.KtoTheSEA 

long fringe of them that runs seaward for 
twenty or thirty miles. 

Clearly written in water-worn boulders on 
the mountain-sides of the now slowly rising 
land, and by the elevated sea-caves, with their 
wave-washed pillows, is the history of how 
the Labrador came here. These raise before 
the dullest mind visions of a paleocrystic sea 
that lapped these shores in the dim ages of 
the past. Hanging everywhere on almost im- 
perceptible lodging-places on the crests and 
ridges of every mountain, the ice-carried errat- 
ics forever tempt one to climb up and try 
to dislodge them. But generally one finds they 
weigh many tons, and his puny strength can- 
not stir them the single inch necessary to send 
them crashing down into the valleys below. 

Labrador has no towns, no roads, and no 
policemen. Scattered along its shores one 
meets, during the months of open water, only 
the venturous fishing-vessels from the far 
South, manned by their wholesome crews, the 
stout-hearted vikings of to-day, and, beside 
these, the native Eskimo, still almost prehis- 
toric in their customs, and themselves alone of 
sufficient interest to merit a side-show at all 
the recent world's exhibitions. But for the 
fact that trade and the gospel have gone hand 




THE NATIVE ESKIMO 
Still almost prehistoric in their customs 



The NORTHERN LIGHTS 15 

in hand, this "flavor of the past" would have 
been blotted out long ago. Only around the 
stations of the brethren of the Moravian 
Church are there left any number of this inter- 
esting people. The good Moravian brethren 
have acted as traders as well as preachers and 
teachers. By tabooing liquor and cheap gew- 
gaws, by fair dealing, by the inculcation of 
simple religion, and by a paternal surveillance 
of morals, they have almost prevented any 
decrease in the number of their people in the 
last fifty years, during which only they have 
kept a census. Meanwhile the Eskimo have 
everywhere else virtually vanished from the 
coast. 

This is a tribute to the value of their mis- 
sion especially unimpeachable, in view of the 
present-day strenuous efforts to prevent loss 
of life among children in our crowded cities. 

It has not been easy to convey to the Es- 
kimo mind the meaning of the Oriental similes 
of the Bible. Thus, the Lamb of God had to 
be translated kotik, or "young seal." This 
animal, with its perfect whiteness as it lies in 
its cradle of ice, its gentle, helpless nature, 
and its pathetic, innocent eyes, is probably as 
apt a substitute, however, as nature offers. 
Yet not long ago an elderly lady, who at other 



1 6 DOWN to The SEA 

times had almost a genius for what savored 
of idolatry, sent me in Labrador a box con- 
taining a stuffed lamb, "that the Eskimo," 
after all these years, "might learn better." 

To the Eskimo mind, everything animate 
or inanimate possesses a soul. Thus, in their 
graves v^e found they invariably placed every 
cherished possession, that their spirits might 
serve the departed spirit in the same capaci- 
ties in the life to come. There is little room 
for burial beneath the scanty earth in Labra- 
dor, even if the frost v^ould permit it. So the 
grave consists of upright stones, with long, 
flat ones laid across. These not only serve to 
keep the wolves from the body, but wide 
chinks also afford the spirits free passage in 
and out. 

I have found many graves perched upon 
some promontory jutting out into the sea, so 
that the spirit might be near its hunting- 
ground and again take toll from the spirits of 
departed seals. In a little cache at the foot of 
the grave are generally to be found the rem- 
nants of the man's property. Even since Chris- 
tianity has come among them, I have seen a 
modern rifle and good steel snow-knives rust- 
ing in the grave ; and I have found pipes filled 
with tobacco, that those who were denied the 



The NORTHERN LIGHTS 17 

pleasures of its enjoyment while on earth 
should at least have a chance given them to 
learn its use in the regions beyond the grave. 
No Puritanical forecasts of the joys of heaven 
trouble the Eskimo mind. 

The stone age is only just passing in Labra- 
dor. But already the museums of the South 
are hungering for these witnesses to man's 
humble origin, and the most easily found 
graves have been ruthlessly rifled. Indeed, one 
man came and complained to me that an ener- 
getic collector, of unmentionable nationality, 
had positively carried off the bones of his 
grandmother! I wished on one occasion to 
obtain some specimens of stone kettles, axes, 
knives, and other relics from some ancient 
graves known to me on a certain island. We 
had not time, however, to leave our steamer 
to hunt for them. Out of gratitude for ser- 
vices rendered to them in my capacity as 
"Aniasuit," or "the man that has to do with 
pain," some of my little friends readily prom- 
ised to seek them for me. They explained, 
however, that they should put something into 
the grave for each thing they took out. I 
referred them to the Moravian station, where 
they could purchase, at my expense, things 
likely to satisfy the departed spirits, as there 



1 8 DOWN to The SEA 

was nothing they would have found valuable 
in my floating drug store. 

Now, it so happened that once, when it was 
the mark of an anarchist in Germany to wear 
a beard, the German brethren had brought 
out a job-lot of razors, forgetful that nature 
had been merciful to the Eskimo in their frigid 
climes, and spared them superfluous hair about 
their faces. So the stock was still available, 
and on returning in the spring I found my 
friends had solemnly deposited these in the 
caches they had robbed. The idea of the hoary 
spirits of their ancestors practising the noble 
art, in the night watches, on these awful head- 
lands, with inferior razors, appealed to other 
than the religious sense in us. But the minds 
of all men are more or less muddled {teste 
Carlyle), and the Eskimo have a singular lack 
of humor. 

As patients, these little people are most ex- 
cellent. They have no fear of pain, and heal 
rapidly, a tribute, possibly, to our almost germ- 
less air. On one occasion, seated in a large 
Eskimo tiihik, or tent, I was seeing the sick of 
a settlement which I had not visited for eight 
months. It came the turn of a gifl of about 
fifteen years, who silently held up a frost-bit- 
ten toe that needed removing. As there was 



The NORTHERN LIGHTS 19 

a dense crowd in the tent, she insisted it should 
be done at once. The satisfaction of being for 
the moment the center of attraction was all 
the anesthetic she wanted. 

Gratitude, also, is not so uncommon in 
Labrador as it was in Judea. I had operated 
one year, in the North, on a young man with 
a dislocated shoulder, and had long since for- 
gotten all about him. Some two years later a 
beaming Eskimo met me at the head of the 
companion-ladder, and produced from beneath 
his voluminous kossack a finely ornamented 
pair of boots. He soon made clear to me that 
he had been pursuing me all this time with this 
token of his gratitude, and kept pointing to 
the shoulder, which he could now freely use. 
I have known it otherwise at home with doc- 
tors and their fees, where the patient took no 
unlawful trouble to see his benefactor re- 
warded. 

There are in Labrador settlers and half- 
breeds who are ever increasing in number, 
while their pure-blooded brethren are vanish- 
ing away. These, too, are an interesting peo- 
ple, retaining many bygone superstitions and 
customs, some of which they have in common 
with all fisherfolk. Among these a large part 
of my practice lies. I append a sample invi- 



20 DOWN to The SEA 

tation to pay a visit to one of them who was 
sick. It is an exact copy. 

Mr. Docker Greand 
Felle Battle Harbor 
Labrador. 

Please Docker i sen 

you this to see if 

you call in Sea 

bight when you gose 

down to see Mr. archbell 

Chubbs he in nead 

of you. 

A letter like this, however, is a compromise 
with their own ideas, and to me is the emblem 
of a better era. For among my first patients, 
thirteen years ago, on a lonely island, was the 
father of a budding family. When I called, 
he was sitting up on his bed, perspiration from 
pain pouring down his face, and the red lines 
of a spreading infection running up his arm 
from a deep poisoned wound in the hand. I 
showed him that his life was at stake, and that 
I could painlessly open the deep wound. He 
absolutely refused, as he had already sent a 
messenger to an old lady up the bay who was 
given to "charming." Passing the island 



The NORTHERN LIGHTS 21 

again before I left next morning, I found he 
had not slept since I went away, and the old 
lady had not yet arrived. He again refused 
the knife. I did not call again at the island 
till the following spring, when I was not sur- 
prised to find his "tilt" deserted and the roof 
fallen in. The old lady had not arrived in 
time, and the neighbors, in their generous way, 
had shared his children among them. 

Having no doctors of their own, they dis- 
play no small ingenuity in devising remedies 
from the few resources they possess. Natur- 
ally, certain persons are looked upon as spe- 
cially gifted. The claims of wise women vie 
with those of seventh sons, but no reasonable 
person would dispute the priority of the sev- 
enth son of a seventh son. "Why, bless yer, 
worms '11 perish in their open hands." Once, 
in stripping a fisherman to examine his chest, 
I perceived that he had a string, as of a 
scapular, around his neck. Knowing that he 
was not a Catholic, I asked him the meaning 
of it. "Sure, 't is a toothache-string, sir," he 
rephed. "Sure, I never had the toothache 
sunce I worn un." So another, who on one 
occasion I found to be wearing a green ribbon 
round his left wrist, told me, "'T is against 
the bleedin', sir, if ever I be took." 



22 DOWN to The SEA 

There are more feet than shoes in many 
families in Labrador, and we are frequently 
called upon to amputate legs which have been 
frozen. Not only do the children suffer from 
this cause, but men and women as well. I 
recall a case which proves the unimportance of 
creed in religion. The wife of a Roman 
Catholic had a leg amputated, and I was called 
upon to supply an artificial leg. I had one in 
stock, and after I had given it to her I learned 
its history. The leg had been made for a 
Baptist soldier who lost a limb in the Civil 
War. When he died, his wife, who was a 
Presbyterian, kept it for a while and then gave 
it to an Episcopal cripple. It worked around 
to my mission in a devious way, and I gave it 
to the wife of the Roman Catholic. 

On one occasion, the burly skipper of a 
fishing crew boarded the mission ship, his 
head swathed in red flannel, his cheek blis- 
tered with liniment, and his face puffed out 
like a blue-bag. 

"Toothache, Skipper Joe?" I said; "you '11 
soon be all right," and I pulled down a 
snaky instrument from the row in the chart- 
house. 

"No, no, Doctor; I wants un charmed." 

"But, you know, I don't charm people, Skip- 



The NORTHERN LIGHTS 23 

per. Nonsense, I tell you! Get out of the 
deck-house!" 

But he only stood vociferating on the deck, 
"No, no, Doctor; 't is only charmin' her 
wants." 

Time is precious when steam is in the boiler, 
so I merely replied, "Sit on that coaming, 
and open your mouth." 

He waited to see that I had dropped the 
forceps, and then followed my directions. 
Waving my hands over his head, I touched the 
offending molar. His mind seemed greatly 
relieved, and he at once proffered twenty-five 
cents for the benefit of the mission. Three 
months later, on my way south, I saw this 
man again. Beaming with smiles, he volun- 
teered, "Ne'er an ache nor a pain in 'er since 
you charmed her, Doctor." While he was 
showing me the molar, still in its place, to 
confirm his theory, I was wondering what 
faith-healing really meant. 

On one of my winter journeys with dog 
team and komatik, we made a long detour to 
see a sick man. A snow-storm overtook us, 
and we arrived late at night, thoroughly tired 
out, at the rude tilt where our patient lay. 
After doing our best for the poor fellow, we 
stretched out our sleeping-bags on the floor 



24 DOWN to The SEA 

preparatory to turning in, as we are in the 
habit of doing whenever it is desirable to have 
a private apartment. It was customary for 
our host's dogs to burrow down through the 
snow and sleep under the house. For there 
they got shelter and warmth beneath that part 
of the floor where the stove stood. Our dogs, 
having discovered their burrows, desired to 
share their comforts, but they could not get 
down to give battle except by crawling down 
one at a time. The result was a constant 
growling and barking only a few inches from 
our heads. Sleep seemed impossible, yet 
no one wished the task of digging the dogs 
out. 

It so happened that my host's seventh son 
was at home, and he promptly offered to charm 
the dogs into quietude. This he did by stand- 
ing with his back to the wall and apparently 
twiddling the thumbs of his clasped hands in 
some peculiar way. He also muttered a few 
words which he would not tell me. For my 
part, I was so tired that I went to sleep watch- 
ing him, and for me, at least, the charm 
worked. My driver also confessed he thought 
that it was we who were charmed; for the 
seventh son had faded from sight and memory 
while still twiddling his thumbs. 



The NORTHERN LIGHTS 25 

Much more rational than these efforts are 
some of those in use at sea. The astringent 
liquor from the boiled scrapings of the hard- 
wood sheave of an old block is no mean rem- 
edy when swallowed in quantity; and the 
boiled gelatinous skin of a flatfish, covered 
with a piece of an oilskin coat, forms a really 
rational poultice. "Why, 't will draw yous 
head to yous heels, if you puts her in the right 
place." 

A salt herring, bandaged against the delicate 
skin of the throat, has much virtue as a count- 
ter-irritant ; but, like most of these humble 
remedies, fails in diphtheria, nor saves in the 
hour of peril some loved child that skilled aid 
might have rescued. 

It is often said that there is no law in Lab- 
rador, and I have heard men profane enough! 
to add, "Thank God!" I do not know that 
the facilities for obtaining satisfactory settle- 
ments have evolved in proportion to our sense 
of justice and the intricacies of our methods 
of obtaining it. In the capacity of magistrate, 
I was called on once to settle the division of 
a property which should have left a small sum 
to a needy family. I found the cost of divi- 
sion by the usual channels would have left 
only a zero to divide. So we appealed to 



26 DOWN to The SEA 

equity, and forced one another to abide by it. 
Only last week a dispute arose about the own- 
ership of a certain plot of land. It had beai 
argued unsuccessfully with high words and 
with pike-handles. The weaker party applied 
for a summons. So, appointing the plot of 
land as the court, and daybreak as the hour, 
we settled the question between three disput- 
ants in exactly fifteen minutes. This included 
the making of landmarks, which I erected my- 
self. Moreover, the court was able to be back 
over the hills in time for breakfast, with an 
excellent appetite and a satisfied mind as his 
only judicial fees. 

There has been no law promulgated as yet 
in Labrador dealing with the infant mortality 
and cruelty to children. My first case of this 
kind involved insistence on a stepfather's as- 
suming the responsibility for a little girl be- 
longing to his new wife. Returning three 
months later to the same place, I found the 
man obdurate and the little girl living in a 
house by hersdf, where he merely allowed 
food to be sent to her. There could be no 
gain to the community by our deporting the 
man to a prison five hundred miles away in 
Newfoundland, nor gain to the child by for- 
cing so unnatural a person to allow her to 



The NORTHERN LIGHTS 27 

live with him. So the court decided to add 
the httle g-irl to the crew of his steamer, and 
steamed away with a new kind of fee. Good, 
however, came out of evil, for we have since 
ventured on a small orphanage near one of 
our hospitals, and I have had the supreme 
pleasure of taking to its shelter more than one 
delightful little derelict. 

We cannot, however, always be Solomons, 
and the best-intentioned of decisions may 
sometimes be at fault. Thus, on one occasion 
a man's cow, feeding on the hillside, was found 
dead in the morning. It had obviously been 
killed by some one's dogs. As the owner went 
up to find the body, he saw two dogs coming 
away suspiciously licking their chops. These 
belonged to a poor neighbor of his, the guilt 
of whose team, I fear, was at no time in doubt. 
He expressed the greatest sorrow, and offered 
to shoot his dogs. But that would not bring 
the cow to life again. So, though he had no 
money, we decided that the cow should be cut 
in two, each man taking half, the offender to 
pay half the value of the cow to the owner, 
in money, as soon as he could. By the valua- 
tion of the coast, the cow was worth only 
twenty dollars. I was alarmed next day to 
hear that my steward had bought from the 



28 DOWN to The SEA 

aggressor six dollars' worth of meat, and that 
two other men had bought four dollars' worth, 
so that the offender was in pocket and dis- 
tinctly encouraged to kill his neighbor's cow 
again, especially as his disposition of his half 
had left him with a fine meal of fresh beef into 
the bargain. 

The uncertainty of a fisherman's calling, 
and the long winter of forced inaction, when 
Jack Frost has our hunting-grounds in his 
grip, made the need of some remunerative 
winter work as necessary to us as a safety- 
valve is to a boiler. We had an excellent belt 
of spruce and fir trees at the bottom of our 
long bays, and a number of us agreed to co- 
operate in a lumber-mill, that thus men might 
be helped to help themselves, rather than be 
forced to accept doles of free flour and mo- 
lasses, and at the same time be robbed of their 
self-respect. So we purchased a boiler, engine, 
and saw-table, and the skipper of our coop- 
erative vessel volunteered to bring these 
weighty impedimenta on his deck from St. 
John's. I myself was away in the North, 
beyond the reach of mails, when it suddenly 
occurred to me that the boiler weighed over 
three tons, and we had not chosen a spot or 
built a wharf on which to land it. We had 



The NORTHERN LIGHTS 29 

merely applied for an area on which to con- 
duct operations. 

But the genius of the sailor saved the situa- 
tion. For the skipper had found a spot where 
he could warp his vessel alongside the rocks. 
He had then cut down some trees, which he 
had used as skids, and improvising a derrick 
out of his main and mizzen halyards, he had 
safely slipped the boiler to the beach. Others 
had dragged it up on another set of skids, 
and had built over it a massive mill-house, 
kneed like a capsized schooner, and calculated 
at a pinch to resist a bombardment. True, we 
had to bring fresh water a mile and a quarter 
without pipes, but they had sawed wood 
enough for this, dammed the river, and car- 
ried the troughs on eighteen- foot stakes; and 
now for several years the mill has been run- 
ning successfully. We had to learn our trade, 
and it has cost us much unevenly sawed board- 
ing and at least four fingers, but, beyond that, 
no serious accidents ; and a httle winter village 
has sprung up about this source of work, with 
a school and a mission room, and we can 
afford to pay for logs enough to give a win- 
ter's diet to one hundred separate families. 
We have built schooners at the mill, besides 
other boats, and a lot of building. I am not 



30 DOWN to The SEA 

sure in my own mind which does more to 
mitigate the many evils that follow in the 
wake of semi-starvation, our pills or our 
mill. 

The economic conditions of all places largely 
cut off from communication are, I presume, 
hampered by the fact that the supplying of 
the necessaries of life falls into the hands 
of a monopoly; so that it often happens that 
the poorer the people are, the higher the prices 
they have to pay. It is the more galling to 
those who wish to preach a gospel of help 
when they discover that these same poor peo- 
ple find it difficult to get market value for their 
produce. 

Here is an illustration of the cash value of 
independence which I took the other day from 
the lips of as fine a toiler of the sea as ever 
trod a quarter-deck. The man has three sons 
grown up enough to help him in the fishery. 
After long years as a poor hook-and-line fish- 
erman, living from hand to mouth, the boys 
made enough money to induce a kindly mer- 
chant to build them a schooner on credit. The 
schooner, named the Olinda^ cost, ready for 
sea, with "the bit of food aboard," as she left 
the narrows of their harbor for the fishery, 
exactly eighteen hundred dollars. "And us 



The NORTHERN LIGHTS 31 

didn't know where us was ever goin' to see 
it from; and us had three sharemen with us. 
But us come back, sir, in three months, and 
sold our catch for twenty-three hundred dol- 
lars; so that us had enough to pay our three 
sharemen, and pay for the schooner, and have 
one hundred dollars coming to us. Us still 
had time to go down North again and fetch 
the freighters us had carried down, and to 
catch another hundred quintals of fish. The 
second trip brought us in seven hundred and 
forty dollars. And now," he said triumph- 
antly, "us is independent, and can buy our bit 
anywhere us likes ; so it will come cheaper, you 
see, Doctor," It stands to reason every man 
cannot shake off quite so easily the shackles 
which bind him to a particular trader. 

It was to help others to do what this man 
was able to do for himself that thirteen years 
ago we started a series of small cooperative 
stores. In many cases these have had the ef- 
fect that we desired. 

The reality of a spiritual world is no stum- 
bling-block to our people, and indeed all are 
more or less superstitious as to its relations 
to the world we now inhabit. Four winters 
ago an excellent trapper, Joe Michelin, living 
about twenty-five miles up the magnificent 



32 DOWN to The SEA 

river on which the Grand Falls of Labrador 
are situated, was in much trouble. His chil- 
dren informed him that they had seen a weird, 
large, hairy man crossing the little bit of open 
country between the alders on the river-bank 
and a drogite of woods on the other side of 
his house. A practical-minded man, he put no 
credence in the story until one day they ran 
in and told him it had just crossed the open, 
and they had seen it waving its hands at them 
from the willows. Rifle in hand, he went out, 
and to his intense surprise found fresh, 
strange tracks in the direction in which the 
children had told him the creature had gone. 
These marks sank into the ground at least six 
inches, where the horses that work at the 
mill would only have sunk two inches. The 
mark of the hoof was distinctly cloven, and 
the strides were at times no less than eight 
feet apart. 

Knowing that he would not be credited if 
he told this story even to his nearest neigh- 
bor, who lived some miles away, he boarded 
over some of the tracks to preserve them from 
the weather. At night-time his dogs would 
often be growling and uneasy, and several 
times he found they had all been driven into 
the river during the night. He himself heard 



The NORTHERN LIGHTS 33 

the monster walking around the house in the 
dark, and twice distinctly heard it tapping on 
the down-stairs shutter. He and his family- 
were so thoroughly frightened that they al- 
ways slept in the top loft of their house, with 
loaded revolvers and rifles beside them. 

The tracks became more numerous as the 
spring opened, and one day his boy of four- 
teen told him that he, too, had seen the crea- 
ture vanishing into the trees. A French- 
Canadian trapper, hearing of his trouble, came 
over to see the tracks, and was so impressed 
that he hauled over four bear-traps and set 
them in the paths. Michelin himself would 
sit day after day at the window, his repeating- 
rifle in his hand, and not leaving his position 
even for meals, on the off chance of a shot at 
his unearthly visitor. The chief wood-ranger 
from the big mill told me he had seen the 
tracks but what to say of them he did not 
know. No new tracks appeared for some 
weeks, however, and Michelin quite recovered 
his equanimity. 

The insistence on dogma has found little 
place on the program of the workers of our 
Labrador Mission. Our efforts to interpret 
the message we would convey are aimed rath- 
er in the direction of endeavoring to do for 



34 DOWN to The SEA 

our fellow-men on this coast, in every relation 
of life, those things which we should like them 
to do for us in similar circumstances. 

As I sit writing in the chart-house, I can 
read across the front of the little hospital off 
which we are anchored the words of a text 
thirty-six feet long. It was carved in solid 
wood by a boys' class in Boston. It reads: 
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the 
least of these my brethren, ye have done it 
unto me." 

I have most faith in unwritten sermons. 
Still, the essential elements of our faith are 
preached orally at times by all of us. And 
in this relation it has been my good fortune 
at times to have a cook or a deckhand equally 
able with myself to gather a crowd on a Sun- 
day morning to seek God's blessing on these 
barren rocks. We can also believe that the 
noble amphitheaters that these mighty cliffs 
afford us are as likely to prove "Bethels" as 
were ever the more stately erections of the 
genius of man. I have seen new men made 
out of old ones on this very coast, new hopes 
engendered in the wrecks of humanity. So that 
once, when whispering into the ear of a dying 
man on board a tiny schooner, and asking him 
if the years since the change took place in him 



The NORTHERN LIGHTS 35 

had been testified to by his Hfe, in the most 
natural way in the world he was able to an- 
swer, "I wish you'd ask my skipper, Doctor." 
We have seen in our tiny hospitals the blind 
made to see, the lame made to walk, and the 
weak and fearful strengthened to face the 
Valley of the Shadow of Death. But the ob- 
ject of the Labrador Mission is to help men 
to live, and not to die; and so to live as not 
merely to cumber this earth for a few more 
years, but to live as worthier sons of that 
great Father whose face we all expect one day 
to see. 



II. 

" Tis Dogged As Does It." 

THE good fore-and-aft schooner Rip- 
pling Wave had made a most success- 
ful run to her market, which happened 
this year to be in the Mediterranean. The fact 
that she had not left the Labrador coast till 
late in October was no fault of hers or the 
skipper's; for if there was one ocean-going 
skipper on the coast known to be more of a 
"snapper" than the rest, that man was Elijah 
Anderson. When the fish-planter saw Old 
'Lige clewing down his hatches, and trimming 
the Rippling Wafue for the "tri-across," he felt 
satisfied that if his catch lost in value by being 
late, it would not be the fault of a craft whose 
record "couldn't be beat," or of a master who 
was afraid to drive her. If all the tales were 
true, Old 'Lige had been known to clap on his 
topsails when other men were lacing their 
reef-earrings, and so he would give them the 

36 



'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 37 

"go-by." Many a time, by pressing her, he 
had got clear of one of those cyclonic storms 
which are the bane of the "roaring forties" in 
the late fall of the year. 

But this year easterly winds and the foggy 
blanket they fling over the coast had hidden 
the sunshine that the fishermen need to dry 
their catches of fish, and 'Lige had been 
jammed in and kept waiting for his load, long 
after he had hoped to be under the sunny skies 
of the Mediterranean. 

But to the Rippling Wave, as to everything 
else that waits, the great day had come at last. 
The cargo was all stowed — hatches sealed 
down — moorings cast ofif — the parting jolli- 
fications held. She had not even to delay for 
a tow through the narrow gulch between two 
islands that had served her for a harbor, in 
order to wait in the roadstead for a wind that 
would give her slant enough to clear the off- 
lying shoals and reefs before dark. A spank- 
ing nor'wester had sprung up just as Old 
'Lige was ready, and, with flags flying and 
farewell guns banging, she had cleared with a 
leading wind through the narrow eastern 
tickle and was hull down long before dark, 
leaving good sea-room between her and the 
outermost shoals. 



38 DOWN to The SEA 

Day after day, without exception, the wind 
held abaft the beam, and the miles rolled off 
like water from a duck's back. Had she been 
contesting an ocean race instead of carrying a 
cargo of dry cod, her record would have vied 
with that of the sauciest racing-machine that 
has ever attempted the passage from Sandy 
Hook to the Lizard. 

When in due time she hove to under the 
rock of Gibraltar for orders, her log showed 
an average of nearly ten knots an hour all 
through — and she had passed the 300-miles 
limit in one twenty-four hours, which would 
have shown a clean pair of heels to the aver- 
age tramp-steamer. 

Ordered to Patras in Greece, she again 
eclipsed even her own record. She had out- 
distanced several rivals who started before her 
from Labrador, and had "caught the market 
on the hop" — i c, fish was scarce and there- 
fore in such demand that her cargo fetched 
splendid prices. 

When at last she started on the return jour- 
ney to her Newfoundland home, after calling 
at Cadiz for a cargo of salt, no lighter-hearted, 
happier bunch of men ever trod a good ship's 
deck. To most of us, in these degenerate days 
of luxurious floating cities, the prospect of a 



'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 39 

passage out across the Western Ocean in the 
month of December, In a 99-ton schooner, 
would not be dangerously exhilarating. But 
the viking stock is preserved in the North 
lands still, and these men were all Newfound- 
land fishermen, with the genius for the sea in- 
born, with minds and bodies inured from child- 
hood to every mood and whim of the mysteri- 
ous deep; even their baby hands had been 
taught to hold a tiller and to pull an oar. On 
the dangerous banks they had served their ap- 
prenticeship, till they had learned to fear the 
perils that beset them no more than we land- 
lubbers fear the dangers of our modern streets. 
Their finishing course had been in butting into 
the everlasting ice-floes from the Polar Sea in 
search of seals, and running home a loaded 
schooner among the endless reefs of the un- 
charted, fog-ridden, ice-frequented coast of 
Labrador. They graduated when, adrift in a 
dory in thick fog in open ocean, without food 
or water, they had run for days, "Westward 
ho!" for the land, some one hundred and fifty 
miles under their lee; or had wandered in 
darkness over loose ice astray from their ves- 
sels, away out seal-hunting on the Atlantic, till 
half-frozen and half -stupefied they had been 
picked up, only to return cheerfully to the 



40 DOWN to The SEA 

same work again, as soon as they were thawed 
out. 

So when once again the Rippling Wave 
dropped the tug and braved the rollers of the 
wintry ocean, the fact that it was the first day 
of December didn't cause them even to look 
at the weather glass, or think of anything but 
the stories they would be telling of their great 
good fortune alongside their own firesides by 
Christmas Day. 

But man proposes and God disposes, and 
there was that in the womb of the future 
for the crew of the Rippling Wave which 
at that time they little reckoned of. There 
were lessons to be learned that will have 
served some of them well when they come to 
pass the last bar, and "meet their Pilot face 
to face" on the shore of the great ocean 
of Eternity. 

It is always harder to get to the westward 
in the North Atlantic than to "run east," for 
the prevailing winds are ever from southwest 
to west and northwest. But the Rippling 
Wave was a weatherly vessel, and the fact that 
by the middle of the month they were only 
in 40 west longitude and 40 north latitude did 
not distress her skipper — though if he would 
.make sure now of being at home by Christ- 



'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 41 

mas Day, he could not afford to ease the ship 
down for a trifle. 

The third Friday was a dirty day. The 
barometer was unaccountably low, and the 
heavy head sea made pressing even the Rip- 
pling Wave to windward in the dark some- 
what dangerous to the hands on deck, owing 
to the low freeboard that their heavy cargo of 
salt allowed them. Old 'Lige was in a gen- 
erous mood — the success of the voyage had 
made him more soft-hearted over such details 
than these men of the sea are apt to be; and, 
anyhow, Friday is not an auspicious day to 
take chances. As the Mate went on deck for 
the night watch, even though an occasional 
star did show up in the heavens, the Skipper 
remarked half apologetically to him as he was 
putting on his oilskins, "You can heave her to 
till daylight, Jim, if you thinks well." 

After one or two seas, more curly than 
usual, had rolled on deck, Jim did "think 
well," and till midnight the hands below en- 
joyed the leisurely motion that these handy 
vessels assume when jogging "head to it" in a 
long sea. 

Skipper 'Lige had just turned in, and was 
peacefully enjoying his well-earned beauty 
sleep, when he felt something touch him on 



42 DOWN to The SEA 

the arm, from which his relaxed grip had but 
just dropped his favorite pipe on the locker. 
He started up, to find a figure in dripping oil- 
skins bending over him. 

As soon as he grasped the fact that he was 
back in the world of realities, he realized that 
the Mate wanted him on deck to give an 
opinion as to a strange darkness that seemed 
to be crossing the ship's path low down over 
the water. Half a second was enough for 
him to get his head out of the hatchway, fol- 
lowing the Mate who had scurried up before 
him, and his experience at once told him the 
truth. "JuJ^P for your life, Jim!" he yelled; 
"it's a water-spout." The two men had 
hardly time to fall in a heap down the com- 
panion ladder, when something struck the 
good ship like a mighty explosion. 

Over she went — shook — ^trembled — rose 
again; and then up — up — up went the cabin 
floor, both men being hurled against the for- 
'ard bulkhead, which temporarily assumed the 
position the floor had occupied the moment be- 
fore. The Rippling Wave was standing liter- 
ally on her head, and it was a question which 
way she would come down. 

But there wasn't time to get anxious about 
it. Another mighty heave or two, a sudden 



'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 43 

sickening feeling, and the two men were roll- 
ing about in the water on the cabin floor. But 
the ship was evidently the right way up. "On 
deck!" roared the Captain, and both men were 
up in time to know that the crew, who had 
been literally drowned out for'ard, were also 
scrambling aft in the darkness to learn what 
to do next. All lights were out, and every- 
thing was awash, for the scuppers could 
scarcely drain off the water quick enough to 
clear the waterlogged ship of the seas that 
rolled over her counter, as she wallowed broad- 
side to it in the trough of the sea. 

Knowledge, to be of any value, must be in- 
tuitive on these occasions. Instinctively the 
Captain had rushed to the tiller. The lanyards 
had broken adrift, and the helm was appar- 
ently hard up. Frantically the Skipper tried 
to force it over to get the ship's head, if pos- 
sible, to the sea. Alas! the rudder was un- 
shipped and fast jammed. The lower gud- 
geon was off the pintail, and the trusty Rip- 
pling Wa^e found herself free to put her head 
in just whatever direction she liked best. 

Somehow, it seemed that she was endowed 
with sense, and that she meant to stand by her 
Skipper. For hazily, but surely, she rounded 
up in time to prevent herself from filling. The 



44 DOWN to The SEA 

men, meanwhile, had seized the axes, and, al- 
most before 'Lige Anderson had issued his or- 
ders, they had ventured for'ard again, to try 
and clear away the wreckage. 

They soon realized that virtually everything 
for'ard had gone by the board; for the soHd 
spout water had hit the foremast about half 
way up, and had then broken, falling in count- 
less tons on the devoted deck. For'ard of the 
middle line nothing was left. The mast, 
boom, gaff and sails were missing, with rig- 
ging, ropes and everything attached. The 
bowsprit, jibboom, winch and paulbitts, 
anchors, chains, fore-companion, fore-hatch 
and galley were nowhere to be seen. The 
decks were torn open so widely that one man 
fell through to his thigh between two strips 
of planking. Much of the bulwarks and 
stanchions were gone, as were also both the 
life-boats and jolly-boat, and every drop of 
water that came aboard poured into the hull, 
threatening to engulf the ship in a few min- 
utes. Probably what saved her was the fact 
that some of the torn remnants of canvas were 
still on deck, or rather in it, for the last of 
the fore-staysail was so hard driven through 
the open seams above the foc'sle, that the men 
were unable to start a rag of it, much as they 



'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 45 

needed it to cover up some of the other yawn- 
ing gaps. 

With the doggedness that characterizes such 
men, they had succeeded before dayhght in 
getting out of the waterlogged cabins some 
nails and spare canvas, and with these they 
had covered over every large opening. Be- 
low the water line the almost solid-timbered 
vessel was still apparently sound, though the 
stump of the foremast was unstepped, with the 
result that its foot, rolling round in the deck 
gammon, was so thumping the bilge inside 
that it threatened every moment to smash 
through the sides. There was enough left of 
it, however, above decks, to make it valuable 
for a "jury-mast," and the Mate with two 
volunteers climbed down into the hold and 
succeeded in jamming it into an upright posi- 
tion. 

In that dark, rolling box, soaked through 
with the water swashing about in it, not know- 
ing but that at any moment they might go 
down like rats in a barrel, their task required 
no ordinary skill and courage. But they man- 
aged to accomplish it, fixing the foot of the 
mast in place with wooden stays captured 
from the broken rails. The rest of the crew 
stood to the pumps. Daylight, struggling 



46 DOWN to The SEA 

throug^h the murky sky, revealed a situation 
that looked hopeless enough. 

For forty-eight hours every man was at 
work helping to jettison the salt and every 
other available ounce of weight that could be 
dispensed with, or taking his trick at the 
pumps, under the stern eye and unflinching 
example of Skipper 'Lige. 

Hour after hour, without a wink of sleep 
or any refreshment but pieces of hard biscuit 
that once had been dry, they fought on with 
sullen strength and energy. 

When the galley went, every pot, pan and 
cooking utensil had gone by the board with 
it. Not a bite of food could be cooked, nor 
a sup of drink be heated. There was one 
thing, however, that these men brought to 
their aid. Like most Newfoundland fisher- 
men, they were praying men. They knew 
that praying at such a time is no substitute for 
work, but they knew also that attitude counts 
for nothing in the sight of the Almighty, and 
not one of them had forgotten to "call upon 
the Lord in their trouble, that He would de- 
liver them out of their distress." 

But at last the instinct of self-preservation 
began to lose its energy, as there came time 
to think, and they began to realize the appar- 



'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 47 

ent futility of continuing the unequal strug- 
gle. 

It must be remembered that it was the dead 
of winter. They were in the middle of the 
North Atlantic. The water was bitterly cold, 
and they were bruised, wet and exhausted. 
They were, too, far out of the winter route 
of trans- Atlantic liners. The chance of be- 
ing picked up seemed infinitesimal, and it 
was obvious that with no boat left it was 
impossible to escape from the wreck. Small 
wonder that faith and hope began at last to 
fail! 

But all hands worked on incessantly at the 
pumps, and at the cargo. Hour after hour, 
watch relieved watch, and the clmik, clank, 
clank of the pumps, that alone broke the mon- 
otony of silence, was almost enough to drive 
men mad. 

They were apparently making no headway 
in raising the ship out of the water. They 
were merely keeping her afloat. But if 'Lige 
Anderson were to abandon hope it meant 
abandoning himself, and he was still sane. In 
the hours between the spells of the pumping, 
which he shared with his men — hours which 
he ought to have devoted to rest, — the Skipper 
had by no means been idle, and he was now 



48 DOWN to The SEA 

able to hearten the rest with three discoveries 
he had made. 

First, the after half of the ship was abso- 
lutely sound; so were her mainmast and sails. 
Moreover, he had been able to rig a "jury"- 
rudder, which more or less guided the ship. 
He had set to work with these as a basis to 
rig a jury-foremast that would carry a small 
sail. He had dried out the after cabin, and 
fortified and caulked as far as possible the 
fore bulkhead, to give a water-tight division 
from the hold. In this it was possible to get 
some rest. 

Secondly, he had found his logbook and 
sextant, and though the latter proved useless 
owing to the sun being continually invisible, 
it certainly was a source of hope. The last 
entry in the logbook on the day before the ac- 
cident led him to the conclusion that he was 
about fifty miles south of the track of the 
ocean liners. 

Thirdly, from his almanac he found that 
there was still a forlorn chance that some 
steamers might still be running by the north- 
ern route. 

It was difficult to make sure which way the 
wreck was really moving. But he could now 
keep her heading somehow to the west'ard, 



'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 49 

and it was possible that she might still be 
worked to a position where they could expect 
to be sighted if such was the case. A more 
trivial discovery, but one that counted not a 
little in the hearts of his Newfoundland crew, 
was an old tin paintpot, with a sound bottom. 
This Captain 'Lige had managed to clean up, 
and over the tiny stove in his cabin he had 
been able to brew enough hot tea to serve out 
a drink all round. These facts he now thought 
good to announce to the crew; and, heartened 
by the warm tea, they stood to the pumps 
again, as night came on, with fresh faith and 
energy. Slowly they edged, and worked, and 
drifted, as they hoped, northwards! If only 
they could make a hundred miles of northing 
their lives might yet be spared. 

A week had now gone by since the accident, 
and a settled gloom, close akin to despair, had 
settled upon the men. As is often the case, 
however, just in the nick of time a thing hap- 
pened which, trivial as it may seem to us, 
meant very much to them. The sun for the 
first time suddenly shot out thro' the drift 
about mid-day, and the Skipper was able to 
get his bearings and tell them that, though 
they were farther to the westward, they had 



'50 DOWN to The SEA 

made at least thirty miles to the nor'ard also. 
Moreover, he was wise enough, seeing that 
they were rather more than holding their own, 
to tell off one man from each watch to keep a 
look-out from the mainmast head. Though 
nothing was seen to encourage them, yet the 
fact that the Skipper believed it was now 
likely that they would sight something, acted 
as a fresh charm, and for yet another four 
days the clank, clank, clank of the pumps 
maintained its even tenor. 

The salt was now all out of the boat, and 
this halved the time that each man had to 
work pumping. But as day after day passed 
and no sail was seen, and the ship ceaselessly 
battled with the angry waters running be- 
tween a northwest and southwest gale, flesh 
and blood began tO' give way; nerve and 
muscle had been strained to the breaking 
point. 

By the fifteenth morning all faith in the pos- 
sibility of salvation had so departed from 
some of the men, that they formally proposed 
to give up striving, and that all hands should 
go to the bottom together. Skipper 'Lige was 
at his wits' end. Violence was out of the 
question. No man aboard would have minded 
even death at his hands. His only subterfuge 



'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 51 

was in continually pointing his sextant at the 
lowering clouds, in inscribing endless succes- 
sions of figures in his book, and at last in an- 
nouncing that he had discovered they had 
reached their desired goal. Having called 
them together, he pointed out to them on his 
well-thumbed charts that they now lay exactly 
on the 49th parallel of latitude. A great cross 
that he had made on it signified the position 
of the ship. Exactly through this point ran 
many lines stretching from the Fastnet to 
New York, intersecting in his picture the spot 
that represented the ship. "Them there lines," 
he announced, "be the tracks o' them big 
steamers. They always races across, and this 
be the shortest way for 'em to go." 

It would not have required much acumen 
on the part of the audience to detect the fact 
that the lines on the paper were not as old 
as the discourse suggested. But men in the 
condition of these poor fellows are not in- 
clined to be critical. All that was required 
of them was to move a handle up and down, 
and the Skipper had staked his all on their not 
questioning what he told them. They scanned 
his face narrowly, and saw that he seemed so 
hopeful that once again the poor fellows re- 
turned to their duty at the pumps. "Now we 



52 DOWN, to The SEA 

be in the track of steamers, boys," the Skipper 
said, "us'll wait right here, sink or swim. 
Let's keep at it so long as us can stand. They 
sha'n't call us cowards anyhow." In all this 
the Mate bravely backed him up. And so 
again, though the response was feebler than 
before, the clank, clank, clank of the pumps 
kept on, as the plucky fellows doggedly set 
their hands to the work. 

The morning of the seventeenth day broke 
with a clear horizon under an oily, sullen sky. 
The remnant of a ship still tossed up and 
down, up and down, on the troubled waters. 
Forward the Rippling Wafue looked now only 
like a bunch of weather-beaten boards. Hour 
by hour, the weary clank of the pumps alone 
announced that there was any life aboard, 
and that she was more than a mere derelict 
on that dreary expanse of waters. Though 
dispirited and half dead, not one man yet 
gave in. Now and again one could no longer 
stand to do his work, yet as soon as he had 
rested, the faith of the others roused him to 
action, and he struggled back, even if it were 
only to fall down at his place at the handles. 

It was just lo A. M. when the watch at the 
masthead called the Skipper. "Smoke on the 
horizon to the east-northeast," he shouted. So 



'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 53 

far gone were some of the men that they 
took no notice of the announcement; even if 
they heard, it seemed too wonderful to be 
true. But in two seconds the Skipper was 
aloft by the side of the watch, and shouting 
"Steamer coming, boys; keep her going!" 

Little by little the cloud, at first no larger 
than a man's hand, grew bigger and bigger, 
till the hull of a vessel was visible like a tiny 
speck beneath it. There was no need now 
to cheer on the men. The watch below was 
turned out to "wear" the ship, that they might, 
as far as possible, drive across the head of 
the approaching vessel. The improvised flags, 
long ago made ready out of bed clothing, were 
hoisted to the tops, and a pile of matchwood 
was prepared in a tar barrel on deck to make 
a good smoke. 

The excitement on board can better be im- 
agined than described. But though their 
eyes were strained to the utmost, they could 
not make out that the stranger got the least 
bit nearer, and it wasn't long before 'Lige 
realized that no help could be expected from 
that quarter. For the speck grew no larger, 
and eventually disappeared again behind the 
wilderness of waters. 

The reaction was proportionate to the ex- 



'54 DOWN to The SEA 

hilaratlon, and an awful despondency fell 
upon all hands when their hope of safety had 
again sunk out of sight. 

The Skipper's resourcefulness was not ex- 
hausted, however, and he spoke to the crew 
as if he were in the greatest spirits. "You 
see we'll be all right now, boys," he said. "Our 
reckoning be just as I told you. Us'll work 
a mile or two more to the nor'ard, and be 
home by the New Year if we aren't by Christ- 
mas." He took care to emphasize his faith 
by serving out an extra and earlier dinner, 
so that, in spite of themselves, not a man 
slackened at the pumps, and the everlasting 
clank droned monotonously on. 

The afternoon was wearing away, when 
suddenly once again the eagle eye at the mast- 
head spied smoke. This time it was in the 
western sky and 'Lige took a bigger risk. 
Twice as much inside planking as before was 
torn from the sides of the hold to enlarge 
the bonfire. So big grew the pile that it could 
scarcely be kindled without endangering the 
vessel. As the speck grew bigger, hope grew 
proportionately large, and without any word 
from the Skipper, the pulse rate of the pump 
reached a fever speed. Closer and closer came 
the stranger. It seemed impossible that she 



'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 55 

should pass now without seeing them. Evi- 
dently she was a small cargo tramp in bal- 
last, and no doubt lightly manned. She was 
now almost abeam, but still she showed no 
signs of recognition. Possibly the only man 
on watch was in the wheelhouse, there being 
apparently no reason for a special watch. Or 
possibly the outlook man was smoking his 
pipe under some shelter from the weather. 
'Lige, through his glasses, had long ago 
learned that there was no one on the upper 
bridge. That she was an endless time ap- 
proaching seemed to him their best chance of 
being seen. For surely some one would be 
on deck to sight them before it was too late. 
But she passed them by like a phantom ship 
with a crew of dead men on board; and to 
this day no one on board knows why. 

It was getting dark, and the wind was ris- 
ing again, with a sea making from the nor'- 
west. The dumb despair that had all along 
been a kind of opiate, allaying any fear of 
death, had been rudely removed by the awak- 
ened thoughts of home, rest and safety, and 
by the apparent certainty of at last being res- 
cued. The suspense as the steamer passed 
by had made the enfeebled men conscious 
of the bitterness of death, and aroused in 



S6 DOWN to The SEA 

them an emotion that was perilously near to 
fear. 

There could be no disguising the fact that 
the end was very near at hand. The mere 
pretense of work that they were now able to 
make was at last permitting the water to gain 
on the pumps; and finally the relief watch 
failed to stand to their work. No one was in 
a mood for speaking now. The Skipper him- 
self silently strode to one of the handles the 
men had dropped, and commenced mechani- 
cally to heave it up and down. 

Only a minute, however, did he labor alone. 
Without breaking the silence, the gallant Mate, 
whose turn it was to rest, placed himself at 
the other handle again, and the play at "pumj>- 
ing the ship" went on. There seemed to be 
no hope. The night promised to be their last 
on earth. But they were men, and they would 
at least die fighting, for no man can tell what 
may be wrested from the fates by a dauntless 
faith. 

The horizon had already faded into the 
lowering sky overhead, and before the sun 
rose again, the long-drawn agony would be 
over, and the bitterness of death passed. 



'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 57 

But it was not to be. Suddenly a loud cry 
from for'ard for the last time stopped the 
pumps. Sure enough, there was a bright light 
away to the eastward, now and again bobbing 
up over the waters. It has always seemed 
right to Skipper 'Lige that their salvation 
should have come out of the East. In his own 
mind, so he says, he hadn't the slightest doubt, 
then, that all would be well. 

It was plain to him that the usefulness of 
the pumps was at an end, and that his last 
move in the game of life must now be played. 
He was always known as a silent man, but on 
this occasion a corpse would have heard him. 
The half-dead crew were on their legs in less 
time than it takes to write it. He had himself 
but recently come down from the mainmast- 
head, where he had been fixing fast to the 
crosstrees a barrel full of combustibles. Now, 
forcing an unlighted flare into the hands of 
the Mate, "To the masthead," he roared, "and 
light up when I do! Up the foremast!" he 
screamed into the ear of his third hand, above 
the roaring of the wind and sea, "and take this 
old can o' tar with yer." For'ard and aft he 
led the rest with their axes. All were work- 
ing like madmen, with a strength that was 
like the final flare-up of a flickering lamp. Soon 



58 DOWN to The SEA 

large pieces of wood had been torn off from 
the hatches, lockers, rails, bulwarks, and even 
the decking. They hacked it from anywhere, 
so long only as the pile on deck should grow 
in size. But even as they worked the water 
was steadily increasing in the hold, and every 
man was conscious that the Rippling Wave 
was sinking under them. 

Sometimes — it seemed for ages — the ap- 
proaching light disappeared from view; yet 
the axes kept going, and the pile of wood 
steadily grew. To restrain the crew from 
setting fire to it during these apparently in- 
terminable intervals required a nerve on the 
part of the Skipper that they themselves no 
longer possessed. But even at that moment, 
with death standing at their very side, they 
were held to an absolute obedience. Their rev- 
erence for their indomitable Captain had long 
since grown into a superstitious fear. As it 
was, the sound of axe and lever, as once on the 
walls of ancient Rome, alone broke the death- 
like silence every man maintained. 

Suddenly, without a moment's warning, a 
huge black mass rose up out of the water, 
towering far overhead like some fabulous 
monster of the sea. The right moment had 
arrived. So 'Lige Anderson fired his last 



'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 59 

shot, and lit his flare. In an instant the ves- 
sel was ablaze. Fore and aft, aloft, and on 
the water-line, the ship seemed one roaring 
mass of flames, which shot high into the 
heavens above her each time the waterlogged 
hull rolled heavily to windward. A moment 
later a brilliant search-light still further blind- 
ed the men on her deck, and afforded the 
pleasure-seekers who were crowding to the 
rail of that floating palace (for it proved to be 
a steamer on a trip round the world) such a 
scene as in their lives they are never likely 
to look on again. It was a scene well able 
to bear all the light that could be thrown upon 
it. For these fishermen had fought a fight 
worthy of the traditions of the best days of 
viking seamanship. 

The huge steamer turned to wind'ard and 
stopped short close to them. A loud voice 
called through a megaphone, "Can you hold 
on till morning?" There was no hesitation 
in giving, and no possibility of doubting, the 
answer. So close were the vessels that every 
man heard the question, and every throat 
shouted back the same answer as from one 
man, "No, we are sinking!" The swash of 
the fast-gaining water, surging loudly to and 
fro in the hold, lent emphasis to the reply. 



6o 'DOWN to The SEA 

Only the voice of Skipper 'Lige once more 
broke the silence. "We are played out; we 
can't last till daylight." 

Words are poor things at best, but the 
words that came back this time thrilled them 
all as words had never thrilled before. "Then 
stand by; we'll try for you now." The Cap- 
tain on the bridge had no need to ask for vol- 
unteers, though the night was black as pitch 
by now, and the danger of launching a boat 
in that rolling sea was a terrible one indeed. 

The steamer was a Grcrman liner from 
Hamburg. The perishing men were only com- 
mon British fishermen. But there is a touch 
of nature that makes the whole world kin, 
and the gold-laced Captain bore a true sailor's 
heart beneath his dapper uniform. Had he 
listened to the dictates of his own emotions, 
he would himself have been the first man in 
the boat. In spite of his brilliant searchlight, 
the wreck to him looked but the after half of 
a vessel, as if a ship had been cut in two. Pride 
in the sheer brotherhood of the sea, that there 
still lived men that could do the things these 
men had done, almost led him to throw dis- 
cretion to the winds, and share in person the 
welcome danger of the rescue. 

But wiser counsels prevailed, and the well- 



*Tis DOGGED as DOES It 6i 

trained life-saving crew that such vessels al- 
ways carry had already arranged themselves 
in position by the side of the steel life-boat. 

There was no lack of skill, no undue haste, 
no shortage of tackle. But long ere the boat 
had reached the water, a heavy sea had swung 
her into the iron wall of the ship's side and 
smashed her to fragments. Those on the 
wreck had witnessed the attempt, and also 
the failure, and the ominous swash of the wa- 
ter in the hold seemed louder and more threat- 
ening than a few minutes ago. Faster the 
water gained on them as deeper the wreck 
wallowed in the seas; yet to man the pumps 
now was not even thought of. The last die 
had been cast, and, without making any con- 
scious resolution, they simply stood by to 
watch the issue. 

The big ship had forged ahead. By the 
time she had regained her position, a wooden 
life-boat was already on its way down from 
the davits with the men in it. Close to wind- 
'ard of the wreck the Captain manoeuvered the 
steamer to shorten the distance to row, if by 
any means he could get a boat launched and 
safely away. Again every movement was vis- 
ible from the Rippling Wave. The life-boat 
reached the water. The port oars were out, 



^2 'DOWN to The SEA 

but before the for'ard tackle was free, a great 
sea drove her into the vessel's side again. The 
rescuing party were themselves with difficulty 
rescued, and their boat was a bundle of match- 
wood. 

All eyes were fixed on the steamer. Could 
it be possible that they would be discouraged 
and give up? Even Skipper 'Lige expected 
to be hailed again, and warned that he must 
keep afloat till daylight. But the men on the 
liner were real sailors, and not the faintest 
idea of abandoning the attempt ever entered 
their heads. At sea, a thing to be done must 
be done — and that is the end of it. Cost is a 
factor that a sailor's mind doesn't trouble 
itself about, so long as material remains. Anx- 
iety about what loss may be involved is a thing 
to be left for the minds of landsmen, and 
harries Jack less than it does a Wall Street 
millionaire. 

The only question with the Captain was, 
which boat next; as if it were a simple ques- 
tion of which tool would best serve to com- 
plete a job that had to be done. A light, col- 
lapsible life-boat seemed to promise most. 
While the ship was again getting into posi- 
tion, this was made ready. The men took their 
places in her and were almost literally dropped 



'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 6:^ 

over the side, as the monstrous ship lurched 
heavily to wind'ard. There was just one mo- 
ment of doubt, and then arms and shoulders 
that knew no denial shot their frail craft clear 
of the ponderous iron wall. Scarcely a mo- 
ment too soon did they reach the Rippling 
Wave. Her decks were little better than 
awash, when Skipper 'Lige, the last man to 
leave, tumbled over the rail into the life-boat. 
Even his dog had preceded him. 

Nor was the wreck left to be a possible 
water-logged derelict, to the danger of other, 
ships. What was left of the kerosene oil was 
poured over her as a parting unction and then 
fired. Before the last man was safe aboard 
the steamer, however, the Rippling Wave, 
mantled like Elijah's chariot in "flames of 
fire," had paid her last tribute to the powers 
she had so long successfully withstood. 

A line fastened to a keg having been thrown 
over from the steamer's side, was picked up 
without approaching too near. With that ab- 
sence of hurry that characterizes real cour- 
age, the life-boat kept off (with her stern to 
the dangerous side of iron) until each of the 
rescued men had been safely hauled aboard in 
breeches of cloth, secured to a running tackle. 
Even the dog would have been saved in the 



64 DOWN to The SEA 

same way, had he not with vain struggling 
worked loose from the breeches and fallen 
into the sea; as it was, before getting the life- 
boat aboard, the Captain was humane enough 
to peer round everywhere with his searchlight, 
in the hope of finding it. The rescued were 
stripped, bathed and fed, and snugly stowed 
in beds such as they had seldom even seen be- 
fore. 

From the kindly passengers, more new and 
warm clothing poured in upon them, next day, 
than they had ever dreamed of possessing, and 
the journey to land was as remarkable to them 
for its luxuries as had been the past fortnight 
for its privations. 

Though Christmas Day had after all been 
spent on the Rippling Wave, New Year's Eve 
found them in the lap of luxury. At dinner in 
the grand saloon, to which every man was in- 
vited, Skipper 'Lige occupied the seat of honor 
next the Captain. There was a general feel- 
ing that it was a great occasion. Never be- 
fore had the close of an old year spoken so 
forcibly of the fickleness of life to many of 
the others present. After a few seasonable 
and brief speeches had been made by some of 
the guests, the climax was reached when the 
Captain — who, at his own expense, had or- 



'Tis DOGGED as DOES It 65 

dered some dozens of champagne to be served 
out all 'round — in terse sailor language pro- 
posed the toast of the evening. There were 
few dry eyes among those who drank "To the 
wives and children of the brave men it has been 
our good fortune to save." 



III. 

Danny's Deliverance. 

THE long winter was again approach- 
ing. The short summer season was 
over. Ice was forming in all the inlets 
and coves. The great fleets of fishermen 
had started for their southern homes once 
more, and day by day the stream of white- 
winged schooners flitting south had been 
gradually getting thinner, until the very last 
of the stragglers had passed by. Out there in 
the offing, even at the distance they pass from 
the harbor heads, they afford us a little com- 
pany. The deepening mantle of snow had 
been along, hiding on the land every vestige 
of the life of summer. Only the gloomy faces 
of great beetling cliffs tower above the snow, 
as if to taunt us with the reminder that we can 
look for little company from their bleakness. 
Already our tiny scattered houses are scarcely 
more than white hummocks rising above the 
66 




THE GLOOMY FACES OF GREAT BEETLING CLIFFS 



DANNY'S DELIVERANCE 67 

steadily deepening snow, and to the careless 
eye, even they would fail altogether to sug- 
gest the presence of the human life with its 
hopes and fears within them. The long months 
of the approaching winter seemed to be hover- 
ing over us like a great cloud, hostile to every 
form of life. The rapidly shortening days 
and the boisterous winter storms seemed to be 
robbing us of all stir and bustle that at other 
times help to save from melancholy. 

True, the great masses of ice, borne ever 
southward on the ocean current, were day 
by day increasing in size, and in resemblance 
in shape to the vessels that have gone, as if 
they were trying their best to fill the void. 
They only seem, however, to deepen the feel- 
ing of utter desolation that has overtaken us 
beside our fast closing highway; for they 
bear them but a grim resemblance, like the 
spectres of departed friends. 

It was close to Christmas, and our little 
mail steamer, paying us her last visit for the 
winter, was lying far out in the ice. Her crew 
was slinging out, onto the standing edge, for 
want of a better landing stage, such poor 
freight as our people's slender stock of money 
could buy for the winter. The rattle of her 
derrick, and the throb of her deck-winch, 



68 DOWN to The SEA 

seemed, like some unpitying bell, to be tolling 
cut the death knell of the last tie that bound us 
to the living world outside. 

The little vessel was in a hurry. Already 
Arctic icefloes outside were threatening to 
cut off her retreat to the south, so that as the 
chain-fall rattled out over the pulleys, heavy 
clouds of smoke rising from her funnel warned 
us she was silently gathering power to snap 
even this our last poor link with civilization. 

Still loath to be absent, as it were, from 
even the obsequies of a valued friend, or like 
the curious crowd that gathers when a funeral 
is in process, we, too, had driven our dogs 
out alongside her, and were standing looking 
at her iron sides rising perpendicularly from 
the ice. Forlorn-looking dog teams were 
standing by, and here a few men were half 
heartedly groping with a long sealing gaff 
in the crack between the ice and the steamer, 
for a truant box of cheese that in the hurry 
had fallen into the water and kept bobbing 
up and disappearing again in the slob. 

Suddenly a voice from the deck above called 
out "Hello, Doctor? There is a patient for 
the hospital on board?" 

"Is there?" I answered. "You had better 
throw him down or he will escape us." 



DANNY'S DELIVERANCE 69 

"Can't you come up on deck?" came back 
the reply. ".The companion ladder is on the 
other side." 

As I followed the steward aft into the 
steerage cabin I could hear the first sounds 
of the propeller rotating, making the ship 
vibrate. Hurriedly we entered the cabin with 
its large open space filled with tiers of iron 
cots, like bookshelves in some model library. 
It seemed at first like one vast empty grid- 
iron. But guided by the steward, I came at 
last on a lump at one end of a cot, hidden from 
sight in a tangle of bed-clothes. Pulling back 
the blankets we found a wizened looking boy, 
small for his fourteen years. His legs were 
drawn up under his chin, and his one object 
seemed to be to hide himself from view. He 
would not speak to us and we had to rely 
entirely on the steward for his story. He had 
been brought aboard during the flying visit 
of the mail-boat to an absolutely out-of-the- 
world harbor some sixty miles away. They 
had carried him aboard, manifestly against 
his will, and he had lain ever since just as his 
bearers had deposited him, without stirring, 
like some terrified rabbit fascinated by a serp- 
ent. They called him "Danny." 

A cursory examination revealed that his 



70 DOWN to The SEA 

legs were paralyzed and rigidly fixed in a bent 
position. It was obvious he could neither walk 
nor stand. There could be no question of not 
accepting him. 

"How shall we get him ashore, sir?" the 
steward asked. 

"We'll carry him," I answered; "he can't 
be but a featherweight." 

And so it proved. For it was the easiest of 
tasks even to descend the companion ladder 
over the ship's side with him in my arms rolled 
up in his blanket like a ball. The crowd on 
the ice displayed at once that generous sym- 
pathy which characterizes all strong men. 
These fishermen of the North Atlantic are 
nothing, if not generous and brave in their 
strength. Ready arms received him. Not a 
coat on a man's back but would instantly have 
been given, if needed, to make easier the 
passage on our waiting komatik to the hos- 
pital. 

Even as we called the dogs to stretch out for 
the journey, the mail-boat backed slowly from 
her cutting in the ice, and before we had 
climbed the bank that rises to the hospital 
gate, nothing was to be seen of her but a 
vague black cloud over the hills to the south 
of us. 



'DANNY'S DELIVERANCE 71 

"Danny" was a Christmas present for which 
we had not looked. 

If the experiences of the mail-steamer had 
been new to "Danny," those in the hospital 
were a revelation. A snow-white bed, a snow- 
white nightgown, and in the morning a large 
bath — these were only a few of the many 
wonderful new things that served to fascinate 
the little patient. They were just as strange 
to him as we were, and he was as shy of them 
as he was of us. It was only a very rosy 
picture indeed of the chance that immersion 
in hot water would give him of once more 
becoming "like other boys" that induced him 
to submit unresistingly to this strange innova- 
tion. 

The sequel, justified it. The second night, 
though he had twenty pounds of shot fastened 
by stirrups to both legs, he slept in his strange 
surroundings soundly and happily. His cot 
was placed in the southeast corner of the 
ward, and the glorious sunshine both from 
above and from the white hillside fell full 
upon him all the day long. After only a few 
days it became a sort of hospital side-show to 
go upstairs and see a laughing boy trying to 
drag heavy weights on his legs up and down 
over pulleys. It was "Danny" endeavoring 



72 DOWN to The SEA 

to bring back strength into his paralyzed 
limbs. 

At first massage, and still more the electric 
battery, evoked frightened floods of tears. 
Yet after a day or two the boy could have been 
seen laughing to himself, as he sat pounding 
his own wasted apologies for legs with one of 
the clever hardwood rolling balls, used by the 
Japanese soldiers for hardening the muscles. 

Days lengthened into weeks. But at last he 
greeted me one morning excitedly with, "The 
left leg is quite straight, Doctor." And soon 
after, "I can make the right one touch the 
bed as I lies on my back now." 

"Now is the time to try walking, then," I 
told him. "It's a fortnight since we first got 
you up into the wheel-chair." 

Alas, the thighs were still completely power- 
less; the knees gave way at once and Danny 
rolled laughing onto the floor. Before we 
could venture to permit him to try his crutches 
again, we must by means of keyed splints lock 
those joints. But self-confidence had now 
given way to timidity, so that when at last he 
was balanced on the crutches, it was almost 
impossible to persuade him to let go of the 
bed-post. It took two of us, encouraging and 



DANNTS DELIVERANCE 73 

supporting him, to get him to try even a first 
step. 

At last, however, he got about quite speedily 
by himself, and "went visiting," as he called 
it, among the other patients. It is true that 
his thigh muscles were still powerless. With- 
out the help of his splints and crutches he 
could still do nothing. 

So more than once a sudden crash overhead 
has brought some of us running unstairs to 
see what was broken, only to find that Danny, 
grown over confident, had been careless in 
placing his foot, and had had an immediate 
and ignominious fall. More than once he was 
lying helpless on the floor, ruefully recogniz- 
ing he could not rise again by himself, but he 
acquired courage and wisdom from his very 
troubles, and he performed prodigies with the 
little strength that he possessed. 

!The winter has passed away. The migra- 
tory birds have already returned. A schooner 
has been sighted in the offing. Two polar 
bears have passed north across our harbor, 
returning, as they always do, from their long 
hunt on the icefloes after the young seals. 
Though our harbor is still closed with heavy 
ice, everything is indicating that in reality 
winter has gone. We are once again expect- 



74 DOWN to The SEA 

ing a visit from our little mail steamer, and 
anxiously awaiting the messages and many 
good things we expect her to bring. The 
crowd that will go out to meet her when next 
she forces her way into the ice, are already 
joyfully anticipating the renewing of the bonds 
that bind us to our brethren in the world out- 
side. 

With the lapse of months, and with careful, 
constant effort, Danny's legs, though far from 
being what they were intended to be, have 
yet grown to be useful limbs. The scanty 
clothing that came with him is all long since 
outgrown. I should be sorry now to have to 
carry him up the companion ladder in my 
arms. He can almost walk by himself, and 
we anticipate the joy of seeing the boy that 
came under our influence helpless, able to take 
up his bed. It is a compensation that no dol- 
lars can buy to be able to feel that in some 
measure we have been permitted to assist in 
this wonderful change. 

We have learned more than one lesson from 
our little patient. He had lain at home many 
months powerless, refusing to venture forth 
for help, and every day losing more of the 
capacity for ever being able to walk. Though 
every day was making it more unlikely that 



DAN NTS DELIVERANCE 75 

he would ever recover, yet it was only at length 
his utter misery that forced him to a decision 
that he would accept the remedy. It involved 
the effort of leaving home ; of leaving all that 
he had ever known in life, and of venturing 
out into an utterly strange place among abso- 
lute strangers. Yet, once again, when the 
steamer came at last, and the moment arrived 
for setting out, faith failed, and but for those 
who loved him truly, he would still be para- 
lyzed and useless. 

But with the effort has come its reward. 
Though still he cannot walk without outside 
.help, yet when he falls he doesn't remain lying 
down now. He knows well enough that the 
Doctor will not say angrily, "Now that you've 
let yourself fall down, you just lie where you 
are ; in future I'll have nothing more to do with 
you!" On the contrary, he knows that we 
are glad to see him trying. Taking warning 
from the fall, he gets up again, like the "man 
after God's own heart," and tries to do better 
another time. 

Driving last month along a frozen river, our 
path took us through thick forests of spruce 
and fir. My little pet spaniel, joyful in the 
glorious weather, was all day gleefully jump- 
ing around the komatik. Suddenly I heard 



^6 DOWN to The SEA 

his loud cry of pain, evidently from the woods 
on the right of us. Hitching the dogs to a 
stump, we started off in the direction of the 
sound, and soon found the dog. He had 
wandered off on his own account, leaving the 
right road for the pleasure of hunting rabbits. 
A delicious scent issuing from a cave covered 
with boughs attracted him in. Even as he 
crossed the doorway there was a loud snap, 
and he was fast caught in the cruel teeth of 
an iron trap. It was a lynx house of a 
neighboring trapper. The pain, the reward of 
his own wrong doing, served only to make 
him wild with anger and fear. Viciously he 
drove his teeth through the hand of my good 
driver who had arrived before me, and had 
good-naturedly tried to relieve him. It was 
the hardest thing to get him to allow us to 
set him free at all, and when at last he was 
freed, he immediately fled and disappeared 
from sight. 

Following his track, I found him outside 
the wood on the ice. I called him to come that 
I might perhaps bathe the leg and relieve the 
suffering. But he fled from me as he had 
never done before. Could it be possible that 
he attributed the pain, which he had so fool- 
ishly brought on himself, to us ? Truly he did. 



DANNY'S DELIVERANCE 77 

He misinterpreted the love which had had to 
hurt him in trying to set him free, and acted 
as if he thought it would give us pleasure to 
make him suffer more. Instead of coming to 
us he fled away. For many days he wandered 
in the woods. At last, when almost given up 
as lost, emaciated and forlorn, he reached 
home just in time to save his life. 

Are these not parables from life? What 
does God want but "willingness" and "trust." 
Willingness to put ourselves in His hands, 
then He will make us "able to walk." Absolute 
trust in all His dealings with us — then He can 
teach us to interpret even apparent adversity 
aright. 



IV. 

The Optimist. 

IT was the depth of winter. Everywhere all 
was frozen, and the snow lay deep on the 
ground. I was fifteen miles from our little 
hospital and it was necessary that I should 
be back before night. The wards were so 
crowded that we had been obliged to even tres- 
pass on the nurse's little sitting-room at our 
diminutive Orphanage to accommodate two 
little lads with tubercular joints. The strength 
of our one trained nurse was taxed to the ut- 
most: she had four patients recovering from 
abdominal operations, one young fellow with 
a knee-joint we had been forced to open, 
and enough to do for the rest to keep half-a- 
dozen nurses busy, if we lived in civilized 
parts. 

I had left the hospital that morning only at 
the very earnest request of a deputation from 
the most northern harbor in the country, to 

7.8 



The OPTIMIST 79 

see a woman who appeared to be dying of 
hemorrhage. Before starting I had insisted on 
a promise to bring me back the same evening 
with a dog team, for my own dogs were 
away to the south with my colleague. 

We had not covered half the distance before 
I realized the prospects were very small of the 
poor half-fed beasts that were hauling me be- 
ing able to cover the ground again that day. 
They were doubly handicapped by having to 
haul two men besides myself, for the nine dogs 
belonged to different owners, and they would 
not travel without the guidance of the particu- 
lar voices they knew to stimulate them. They 
had a good six hundred pounds to haul over 
hills and valleys and rivers and bays, a heavy 
burden and a hard road at the best of times. 
And the dogs were enfeebled by poor feed- 
ing, for there had been a scarcity of offal, 
saved from the fish, and caplin, usually pre- 
served for dog food. Corn meal, too, was ex- 
pensive, and even at best, it is a poor substitute 
for fats and meat for the food of working 
dogs. It was partly an errand of mercy. 

The harbor is a deep, narrow ravine be- 
tween the mainland and a large island, from 
the northern point of which the towering head- 
land projects into the polar current. During 



8o DOWN to The SEA 

the summer a furious tide rushes through this 
weird cleft, or tickle, in the cliffs, and in spring 
and fall huge pans of northern floe ice are 
swept to and fro jostling and smashing one 
another against the unyielding ice-worn walls 
on either side. The shoal ground outside, 
where the fish swarm, causes a thundering 
surf, ceaselessly smashing into the cliff faces. 
The whole is a very battle of Titans. 

The land around has long since been de- 
nuded of trees and bushes for firewood for 
the many fishermen who frequent the harbor 
in summer. For the choice of a home by a 
codfish is not made by carpet-knight stand- 
ards, nor is a Newfoundland fisherman, seek- 
ing a living, to be deterred by trifles. Many a 
splendid voyage of fish has been killed among 
these jagged rocks and dangerous waters. The 
harvest of the sea here, as elsewhere, has to 
be wrested from a reluctant environment. 

Naked and forbidden this spot is in the sum- 
mer months; but in winter all is different. 
Ocean, straits and tickle are alike held in the 
resistless grip of the silvery King of Winter. 
The boiling cleft is silent as death, and its 
broken waters are a fine hard road for our- 
selves and our carriages. The precipitous 
faces of the cliffs are hung with the most ex- 



The OPTIMIST 8i 

quisite ice candles forty feet in length, and the 
enormous banks of pure white snow round off 
all such inequalities as might hurt or impede 
our progress. A jump in the dark over a 
thirty-foot cliff face only delays us, while we 
extricate ourselves from a bed of fine white 
feathers. And the sun, reflected from the spot- 
less surface, dazzles us like the face of another 
Moses, and demanded snow-glasses to reduce its 
radiance to the level of the average human eye. 
The last mile called for little energy on 
the part of our steeds as far as hauling went, 
the road trending steadily down toward the 
final jump. But the speed gathered by the 
heavily weighted slide took sudi breath as was 
left out of the best of them as they endeavored 
to escape being over-run. The poorer dogs 
either wisely jumped aside and slipped their 
harness as quickly as they could, or, submitting 
to their fate, were run over and trailed be- 
hind, till slackening speed should allow them 
to get their feet again. The events of the 
sick-room took a large slice out of a short 
winter day. But we should still have expected 
to make "across t' bay 'fore dark" with our 
sorry steeds. But we had not counted on the 
impromptu clinic which is always afforded the 
doctor on his rare visits in these parts by the 



82 DOWN to The SEA 

sisters, the cousins, the aunts and uncles of 
the patient. On this occasion rather a larger 
crowd than usual of sorrowing friends had 
gathered. There seems to be something 
specially attractive to the lay mind in a case 
attended with hemorrhage. Here as they sat 
talking in whispers on the benches placed 
against the walls there seemed a melancholy 
satisfaction in seeing bowls carried to and fro, 
and in listening to the tread of many feet. 
Typhoid and tuberculosis appear to offer no 
such charms. 

I stood between a night out with the dogs, 
and one with a restless, uneasy mind in my 
sleeping bag on the floor. The bag is an old 
friend and a good one. I have no fault to find 
with it. But the need for my presence was 
over and my mind back at the hospital. If 
only it could materialize there, or find a tem- 
porary, effective medium for communication in 
the dormant unused bodies of one of the sleep- 
ing patients, my body left behind would not 
have cared. But without telephone or tele- 
graph I felt myself badly stranded. 

With commendable zeal, however, my 
drivers planned to fulfill their share of the con- 
tract. They would take me back at all cost. This 
meant, however, that we tramped till we came 



The OPTIMIST 83 

to a decline where we sat on and "randied." 
The progress was slow, as there was much sea 
ice to cross, and we were just deciding to 
abandon the march when a man hailed us from 
the hillside, and came running out over the 
ice to intercept us. "It's Ken, Doctor," said 
one of my companions. "I reckon his little 
chap is sick." The surmise was correct. And 
a contract was soon arranged. I was to trans- 
fer, examine and treat his little boy, and he 
was to harness up and carry me on to the hos- 
pital. My own share of this compact was 
soon discharged, though it involved a further 
re-examination of the poor man's wife, who 
lay dying of consumption. But, alas, his dogs 
were away in the bay, and his man had sent 
to say that they would not be back before 
nightfall. 

Suddenly, in our dilemma, our thoughts 
flew to "Bill." "Likely Bill will take you, 
Doctor. I seed him pass down t' cove an hour 
ago." And without further comment my host 
disappeared to find the delinquent Bill. 

On the very top of the divide between the 
village that nestled under the shelter of the 
cliffs and the western branch of the harbor, 
isolated from the rest of the villages, is a rude 
shack. By courtesy it is called a house. It is 



84 DOWN to The SEA 

some sixteen feet long by twelve wide, and its 
single story is less than six feet to the beams. 
Fortunately there is no ceiling and the lofting 
of the rafters adds to the capacity and saves 
at once the space for stairs and the trouble of 
climbing them. You can get at all the house- 
hold property by the simple process of rais- 
ing your hand, there being no cupboard. The 
dogs, which sleep with the family, are thus 
freed from temptation to steal, an arrange- 
ment that tends generally toward domestic 
peace. This mansion was the property of my 
deliverer, and as it was "on the way," I bade 
good-bye to my patients, and followed in pur- 
suit of "Bill." 

Bill is a strange figure to look at, limping 
on the left leg, and with the corresponding 
hand "scrammed" or partly paralyzed. He 
shuffles along as if he had, from long acquaint- 
ance, acquired some of the habits and char- 
acteristics of the familiar crab. An attack of 
"the paralyze" in his boyhood had left him 
a hard struggle. His father had long ago 
died. There remained a younger brother, an 
imbecile sister, and a mother scarcely better 
gifted. Bill has never married, and the 
brothers, mother and imbecile sister live to- 
gether in their poor home. 



The OPTIMIST 85 

Everything on this coast is against such a 
man. With no time to read, or write, or to 
devote to the acquisition of that knowledge 
which would enable him to hold his own in a 
bargain, and without the remotest idea about 
the great world outside, his lot has been one 
of uninterrupted poverty and struggle. He 
has supported the family year in and year out 
with such codfish as fastened themselves on to 
the end of his line, never able to pay others 
to do work for him, handicapped as "the para- 
lyze" left him. He has only too many times 
known hunger and want and cold. His face, 
though he is still a young man, already 
shows plainly enough the marks of hard ef- 
fort. 

It might be supposed that such would be the 
last man to whom one would appeal, late on 
a winter evening, to turn out and carry an 
unbidden gtiest a long, weary distance over 
frozen hills. 

Yet it is not so, there is no one along these 
shores so much imposed upon for hauling 
priests, parsons, doctors, and strangers gen- 
erally; no one that carries one half the mes- 
sages along the coast that this crippled man 
does. It is the custom of the coast to make 
no charge for these kindly offices. They are 



86 DOWN to The SEA 

done freely and for cause or not at all. There 
are those with whom it is the custom to make 
excuses. But Bill is not of that kind. No 
sight is more familiar along the winter tracks 
than his rude komatik, and diminutive dog 
team and shuffling figure. 

We are so accustomed in civilization to look 
upon every act performed by us for others 
as purchasable, that one's mind at once con- 
cludes it pays him well somehow. After all 
that is a correct conclusion. But not in gold 
that perishes. For it is the one joy of poor 
Bill's life to render services to others. But 
the sweetness of it is that he never accepts any 
return from any human beneficiary. A dollar 
is not less than a dollar, as one can well under- 
stand, to a man in Bill's circumstances. But 
large as a dollar must loom in his estimate of 
the value of material things, there is only one 
opinion among all who know this man ; he puts 
a value beyond money on the opportunity to 
render a service which goes unrequited. 

The familiar words of the fisherman dis- 
ciples of long ago are never read in my hear- 
ing, but my thoughts fly to this humble twent- 
ieth century disciple, "Silver and gold have I 
none, but such as I have I give in the name 
of Jesus of Nazareth." Bill's theology is not 



The OPTIMIST 87 

gathered from reading or even hearing the 
Scripture ; yet his faith is great enough to re- 
move many mountains. 

*'T' dogs has just been fed, Doctor. If I'd 
only ha' knowd this 'fore. I bet they wouldn't 
ha' had a sup this night," for dogs cannot 
do themselves justice running on a full 
stomach, and that they had been fed they 
clearly testified by an undoubted bulge on that 
part of their anatomy which is devoted to 
these purposes. "My, Doctor, 'tis too bad. 
They'se bein in the bay for wood all day, and 
them's only just out." If Bill starved himself 
he would not see his dogs go hungry. Yet I 
should have gathered from their ribs that his 
idea of the amount of food necessary is based 
on the diet he himself lives on. "It's hard t' 
keep dogs fat when them's workin' right 
'long." 

During the constant succession of mild 
grumbles in the same strain, he was jumping 
about "getting things t' rights," having in- 
vited me, meanwhile, to see a guest in his house 
who "had taken a kink in his back." Knowing 
the man, I was not at all surprised to find a 
sick visitor living on him. The gaunt, for- 
lorn, threadbare stranger, helping to fill still 
further the already inadequate available space, 



88 DOWN to The SEA 

seemed only a natural circumstance. For of all 
the generous people in the world commend me 
to the poorest poor. 

Many a times has the story of the widow's 
mite carried me in thought back to these 
humblest of humble cottages, where not only 
have I myself shared the hospitality which 
keeps a few ounces of "sugar" and the single 
tin of miUc — things their own diet seldom, if 
ever, aspires to, for "any one special who may 
happen along," but also many times have I 
seen the still more Christlike charity which 
shares its poverty freely with a still more un- 
fortunate neighbor, with all of whose faults 
and foibles they are familiar. 

Soon the team was harnessed in, and the 
path being good and level, I acted on his re- 
peated injunction to "bide on," while he trot- 
ted on beside, his good hand on the upturned 
nose of the komatik. 

"Your guest is in a poor way. Bill," I sug- 
gested. "How long do you intend to keep 
him?" "Well, you sees, Doctor," he answered, 
"he's getting old now, and his woman's dead 
three years." "But you can't afford to feed 
him. Bill, you know you can't." "Not ex- 
actly, Doctor. You sees, he's a bit scrammed 
just now, and he can't cut up his firewood." 



The OPTIMIST 89 

"I think he'd best let me get him to the poor- 
house, Bill, he is past work now." "I suppose 
he must, Doctor," he answered, a tone of sor- 
row in his voice. "I sends him down some 
dry wood on times, but it seems he can't make 
a do of it of late." 

We were crossing a large arm of the sea, 
and the salt water ice being a bit sticky I at- 
tempted to get off and walk. We had, all-told, 
two dogs, two pups, and one-half pup, a little 
white animal with beady black eyes and the 
most willing of spirits, which reminded me all 
the while of a white rabbit in a hurry. Only 
one of the dogs seemed to be really able to 
haul to any extent, and it was imposing on 
good nature for a healthy, heavy Doctor to sit 
on while his lame driver poured perspiration 
as he Hmped with uncouth gait. "Here," I said, 
"you sit on a bit. Bill, my feet are cold sitting 
on." "They've hauled fifty sticks to the land- 
wash, and one load home to-day," he replied, 
as if apologizing for the dogs. "No, sir, I 
never whips them. Come Caesar, Jumbo, haul 
up." And he trotted along faster than ever. 

The dogs responded for a minute and even 
Jumbo, which proved to be the diminutive white 
rabbit, felt for a while he was doing the work 
of a traction engine. I persuaded Bill at last 



90 DOWN to The SEA 

to "sit on" while I saved my toes from shar- 
ing the fate of Captain Peary's, But he only 
consented for a moment while he took off his 
gloves and hat, and carefully hung them on 
the top of the uprights, thus completing his 
preparations for a fresh burst of energy. 
"Bide on, Doctor, bide on, Doctor. 'Tain't 
my fashion to give a man a lift and then sit on 
myself," There was no withstanding the re- 
peated appeal, and our regal procession con- 
tinued thus till we reached the steep hillside 
across the bay. 

As we walked slowly up the hill I ventured 
to suggest he spent too much time on the road 
doing other people's work, "No, no, Doctor," 
he answered, " 'tis my fashion. I fair loves to 
oblige anyone, especially the sick. Leastways, 
I nearly lives on the road." "You should be 
paid something, Bill, for the many messages 
you carry to and fro. It's worth a dollar a 
day surely?" "I thinks God will reward me 
sometimes^ Doctor." "You're right enough 
there," I answered ; "yours might be called the 
faith that saves." 

Immediately he changed the subject, saying, 
"That's as good a leader, Doctor, as there is 
on the coast, but she be terrible thin. It's 
sick she is, Doctor. I knows she is." "Is there 



The OPTIMIST 91 

nothing I can do for her?" I said. I often 
treat dogs, for my thoughts flew to the scaf- 
fold at the hospital on which the best part of 
a ton of whale meat still reposed, for the 
prominent symptoms of this disease seemed 
manifest even at the distance of the long trace 
at the outer end of which she labored so faith- 
fully. "There's an Indian cure for it, I hears 
'em say," he answered. "You gives um nine 
buckshot to eat on a Friday." "Have you tried 
it yet?" "Why, yes Doctor, I gived them to 
her just before we left." 

We were now racing down a series of steep 
hillsides, so steep that in spite of the "drugs" 
or drags, it took all our attention to keep from 
running over the dogs. Indeed, a little later 
on the poor white rabbit disappeared with a 
squeak under the sledge to re-appear as a fish 
on the end of a line hauled along by the neck 
till his trace gave way. He was no sooner 
loose, however, than he was after us again at 
his full speed, merely shaking his ruffled white 
coat as he came along. As for our thin leader, 
even he was panting heavily at the last decline, 
and one could almost hear the rattle of the 
Indian cure inside her as she swung down the 
hill with her mouth open. 

The downhill path had given my friend a 



92 DOWN to The SEA 

short "spell" on the sledge, and skilfully 
balancing himself I noticed he had spent much 
time searching again and again in his pockets. 
"It's the very first time I ever," he said, when 
at last he spoke. "Ever what," I asked. "Why 
left her all at home. Pipe 'n 'backer 'nd lights 
and all the whole kit. What is I to do now?" 
At first, as from the oysters in the song of the 
Walrus and Carpenter, "answer came there 
none." But then the bright thought of the co- 
operative store a mile out of our way flashed 
into my mind. "You know I've got to call at 
Ned Spencer's on the way, I suppose," I 
asked. "Has you ?" he asked. "Well, it will 
be more than dark before we gets off the salt 
water ice. But no matter, I suppose." 

The lights of the store were greeting us 
when he suddenly extracted from the depth 
of some inside pocket a small cube the size of 
a hazelnut. Holding it up high for me to see, 
before he put the whole of it in his mouth, he 
exclaimed triumphantly, "There, I knowed I 
feeled her all the time." It was the last of a 
much cherished plug of tobacco. "I shall leave 
you here. Bill, and then you can get back in 
good time for to-morrow in the woods. Ned's 
team will cari-y me the rest of the way." 

"I'll finish it now. Doctor, if you'se is agree- 



The OPTIMIST 93 

able. That parcel is a bit o' venison Mrs. Brai- 
ley is sending- up to her daughter at Snag 
Cove, and I promised I'd leave un for her." 
Bill had a way of speaking of these matters in 
a tone which somehow conveyed the idea of 
finality, and one felt argument with a pan of 
ice would have been as successful. 

Ned happened to be out when we drew up, 
but I purchased the necessary fumigating ap- 
paratus which Bill as promptly refused to ac- 
cept. An excuse was necessary. "But I did 
not send you that Christmas present I promised 
two years ago, Bill," I said. "It will be a 
terrible load off my mind. Besides, I like the 
smell of Ned's tobacco. It helps the Copper 
store along." "Well, I be real proud to have 
un, and I gives you thanks." 

Bill is not a metaphysician nor is his mem- 
ory good. Logic is not his strong point, and 
the argument appealed to his weak side, and 
our fisherfolk aren't yet superhuman. On the 
contrary, a very human person is Bill, though 
without the varnish and veneer of modern 
civilization, the kind of Christian man the 
Master needs in the Twentieth century, a man 
of few words, but of kind deeds many. A 
man always at peace with the world and him- 
self, possessing the elixir vitae that looks 



94 DOWN to The SEA 

only on the silver lining- of the clouds, a verit- 
able optimist. 

I happened this morning to cut up a gaudily 
painted pen-holder that was lying on my desk. 
Off came the colored shellac, and underneath 
stood revealed a piece of our own common 
wood from the forest. It seemed finer with 
its gay coat, but it served every bit as useful 
a purpose bereft of the frippery. We are so 
apt to think that things are necessarily better 
because puny man has added conventional 
adornments to the wonderful productions of 
the Creator. Could we but have eyes capable 
of seeing as with a microscope the ducts and 
fibres of that humble piece of wood, should 
we have thought an adventitious covering of 
paint made it really more valuable, gauged by 
the standards of either its usefulness or actual 
beauty? Perhaps this is the case with our 
humble friends like Bill. He is best as he is. 
The veneer of civilization could not improve 
him. 

When we finally drew up opposite the door 
of the hospital, I told him to go down and 
give his dogs a good dose of whale meat off 
my scaffold, and then to come up and spend 
the night in the hospital. Bill shuffled and 
stood on one foot. "I thinks I won't come 



The OPTIMIST 95 

back. I give you thanks, Doctor." "Why 
not," I replied. "Surely you aren't going to 
try and go back to-night?" "This here," he 
said, touching a parcel in some sacking firmly 
lashed on the bars and on which I had been 
sitting, "this here parcel is for Goose Cove, 
Doctor. You sees 'tis only eight miles now, 
and I'se can be back easy by breakfast." 
"Why, what on earth have you got there?" 
" 'Tis just a bit of mutton what old Aunt 
Simmonds asked me to carry up to Skipper 
Alfred. He's sick, they tells me in the cove." 
I slammed the door and went in to a good 
tea, feeling very small. Bill's case is incurable. 
He is an optimist. 



y. 

The Mate of the Wildflower. 

HARRY LEE was six and twenty and 
only a mate still. He was married, 
and had two young hostages to for- 
tune. It seemed to him as if he were six and 
fifty, for there was not another man in the 
port of his age and position who had not yet 
gone master of his own craft. In reality, he 
was an open-faced, handsome young fisher- 
man, with tan enough in his black eyes and 
hair to give one the impression of a touch of 
Spanish in his blood, his appearance certainly 
suggesting a devil-may-care spirit, and other 
folks thought that it was this, combined with 
the memories of some of the mad-cap pranks 
of his youth, that kept the owners from en- 
trusting their property into his hands. 

Harry Lee was not a native of the sea port, 
but his taking to sea had been like that of a 

96 



{The MATE 97 

duck to watef. He only knew of his parents 
that they had "moved to London," where he, 
for one of his wild adventures, had been 
pounced on by the authorities, sent to an in- 
dustrial school and apprenticed thence to the 
fisheries. 

Here there had been a long-drawn fight be- 
tween the group of boys he was thrown 
among and a sordid, money-grubbing master, 
who, instead of giving employment as captain 
to those boys coming out of their indentures 
to him, succeeded in saving wages by sending 
his vessels to sea with even "skippers" who 
were still "serving their time." 

But one factor which strangely enough still 
further militated against Harry getting a 
command had come upon him without his 
seeking. One time while home he had been 
induced by some of his more serious minded 
shipmates to join them at an evening service at 
their small house near the pier end, which they 
called the "Bethel." There and then that 
which was hardly even hoped for happened — 
the man who had been so strenuous for evil 
proved to have a warm heart underneath. 
Harry, mad-cap Harry, decided right then and 
there to serve God. So sudden a change in 
such a man was naturally soon noised abroad. 



98 DOWN to The SEA 

Indeed, Harry himself had no desire to hide 
his Hght under a bushel. Whatever he did, he 
did with a will, and let any one who liked take 
exception to it. 

Now, it so happened that a fight had just 
begun between the owners and their crews, 
about Sunday fishing. The owners argued 
that as the vessels were on the fishing grounds 
anyhow, and were not in sight of land, or In 
reach of churches, the men ought to work their 
big nets on Sunday, just as they did every 
other day of the week. They said the men 
could just as well pray, If they wanted to, while 
their net was out ; and as the vessel cost money 
on Sunday as well as Monday, and as there 
were many stormy days when men must lay by 
anyhow, any man who refused to fish on Sun- 
day should lose his charge of a craft. Some 
of the stouter hearted Christians had taken 
no notice, and had, on coming home from sea, 
been greeted with a curt dismissal. Lee's po- 
sition in this, as In other matters, was un- 
equivocal. He would not work on Sunday, 
and this, together with his well-known uncom- 
promising spirit, made It seem even less likely 
that he would ever get a vessel of his own to 
command — for he certainly would not accept 
one on those terms. 



The MATE 99 

His little wife, however^ was an optimist, 
and though it seemed hard that her husband 
should have just as much to do with the mak- 
ing of good voyages, and just as much work 
to do as the skipper, and yet should only get 
half the poundage money, and so be unable to 
buy his boys things like some other people's, 
yet her smile was unfailing, and she argued 
it would all come right some day. 

And come right it had too. His day came at 
last. The fleet had been fishing almost on the 
"Holland coast" early in their voyage, when 
the skipper of the Wildflower, of which he 
was mate, met with an accident, breaking his 
thigh, and having to be sent home in the fish 
carrier to London. The vessels were doing 
well at this time, and to take the vessel home, 
as most men would, and break the voyage, 
would mean a heavy loss to the owner. So 
Harry, in his capacity of mate, called the boys 
together, and offered to take command of the 
vessel and go on with the voyage. They 
agreed; at least until their owner should send 
them their recall. There was a mission vessel 
in the fleet at the time, which always carried a 
spare hand, who could be lent to help out with 
a vessel that was short-handed for a time, and 
this the mission boat now agreed to do for Lee. 



100 DOWN to The SEA 

So the "fish-notes" from the Wildfloiver 
kept coming regularly in to the owners, and 
not for weeks did they learn that the injured 
skipper had died in the hospital, and that the 
good catches the Wildflower was making 
were the result of the pluck and energy of the 
new captain. 

So word went out to stay in command till 
the vessel's time for return was up, and a 
fresh hand was sent out to replace the second 
mate, who had taken Lee's place as first. 

Sailors are apt to be fatalists, and to think 
little of death. The prevailing idea over the 
whole incident in the new skipper's mind was 
simply that God had so ordained it that this 
should be the chance of his life. He no more 
questioned that it was the good hand of God 
upon him than he questioned that such a token 
of love called specially for every ounce of 
energy and skill he could put into it, in order 
that he might prove himself worthy of the 
trust. So it fell out that however hard it 
blew, when other men shortened canvas, the 
Wildflower shook out her topsails, so that 
she might drag her net the faster. When oth- 
ers "hove-to," fearing to risk the towing of 
their gear, Harry would show his lights for 



The MATE loi 

"shooting the net," and though buried in seas, 
would still succeed in hauling safely. In this 
way he was able to have catches to send to 
empty markets^ clamoring for fish. Thus the 
earnings of the Wildflower stood ahead of 
the rest of the fleet. 

The weeks went swiftly by. At last the 
eighth week end marked the time for home. 
Provisions were short — for the crew was noth- 
ing if not hearty. So he bade the Admiral and 
skipper good-bye in the morning, that he might 
be ready to leave with the first fair wind. Even 
in so short a time as had elapsed he had made 
great favor with the men, who love a hard 
worker and admire a dash of daring with it. 
There was a great demonstration of rockets 
and flags, and salvos of guns, when the Wild- 
flower put her helm up and bore away for 
home. 

It was now early in November, and the long, 
dark nights made it dangerous work making 
the east coast of England for a small sailing 
vessel, ten times more so than weathering the 
breezes in deep water with plenty of sea room. 
Two long stretches of sand lie off for many 
miles parallel with the land, and the channels 
of safety between them are hard enough to 



I02 DOWN to The SEA 

find at the best of times, being but poorly 
marked; while a single mistake is enough to 
cost all hands their lives. 

To make matters worse, it was dense with 
fog, just when the skipper was expecting to 
pick up the marked buoys on the outermost 
sands. Together with the fog and sea, the 
barometer still held threateningly low. By 
dead reckoning the WildUower had run her 
distance by mid-day, and the safety and com- 
fort of home was only now some forty miles 
distant. To cap it all, there would be the 
credit of a fine finish to a record voyage, if he 
could drive her right in before the storm 
broke. 

As Harry thought of what that would mean 
to his "bit of frock," as he called his wife, he 
felt compelled to take every chance and "let 
her rip." It was the mate's opinion, too, that, 
though they had not seen the mark-boat, it 
would be best to risk it and go ahead. No 
sooner said than done. At sea the man who 
hesitates is lost. The born sailor acts intu- 
itively while the land lubber is philosophising. 
It is, however, just as necessary to be cautious 
at times, and the skipper made concessions so 
far as to now and again head the weather and 
take a sounding. To Harry the sand that came 



The MATE 103 

up on the lead, "armed," as we call it, with a 
lump of tallow in the hollow end, spoke almost 
as plainly as so many sign posts to a driver 
on the land. 

By sundown, though without having seen 
them, they could tell by the lead that they were 
on the inside of the outer belt of sands. Often 
near the land the sky clears up so as to render 
it visible; but this time it deceived them. The 
heavy wind failed to dispel the darkness, so 
that nothing, not a wink, could yet be seen of 
the land, which they had last viewed two 
months before. Unless they could get a 
glimpse of something, they would be obliged 
to lay out the gale without sea room and in 
shoal water. They were now hemmed in be- 
tween the land and the breakers, running at 
best great risk. As night settled in, the crew 
were talking in low whispers of the folly of 
not having kept outside the sand, and the skip- 
per himself was anxious and depressed. At 
eight bells the vessel was "hove to" to await 
issues. 

Suddenly there came as a flash upon Harry's 
mind the thought, "Now I can do nothing for 
myself, and surely God will stand by me." 
This, he told me himself, seemed like a voice 
speaking to him, so that he felt as we always 



104 DOWN to The SEA 

imagine Paul did, when "There stood by me 
this night, One, Whose I am and Whom I 
serve." Hurriedly the skipper went down into 
the cabin, got out the chart and fixed it on 
the table, just exactly as if he could already 
see land. He "fixed" the small swinging lamp, 
and laid out the compass and dividers before 
calling out to the mate on deck to take an- 
other sounding. 

While this was being done, he flung himself 
on his knees on the cabin floor, and asked 
"Him Who was with them in the boat" for 
just one sight of the pier-head light. The 
whole thing took but a minute, and then, 
climbing the gangway ladder, he walked to the 
compass, ready to take a bearing of the light 
he felt certain he was going to see. 

I have only his word for it, but it happened 
exactly as he expected. Away over the lee 
quarter the fog suddenly thinned out, a patch 
of clear space almost the size of a man's hand 
opened up, and then the familiar home har- 
bor light shone out clearly and brilliantly for 
a brief moment. Carefully he took his bear- 
ings, and then — just as suddenly — the fog 
shut in ag^in, and the darkness reigned 
supreme. 

But one glimpse of the home harbor light 



The MATE 105 

was enough for Lee at any time, and in an in- 
stant the foresail sheet was loosed and the 
WildHower was paying off for home. 

The skipper had just gone below to lay off 
the course, and had just pencilled the line he 
would take, when the mate called down the 
companion, and in a voice evidencing no little 
alarm, shouted : "Skipper, there's some one 
calling; I heard it as plain as I heard you just 
now." "Calling out here? Nonsense," the 
captain answered. "Put her S. W. southerly 
for twenty minutes, then take another sound- 
ing." 

"Skipper," said the mate, "it was a voice 
I heard. I swear it, so help me God. Come 
up and listen." 

The mate was evidently frightened. So the 
skipper once more climbed on deck to satisfy 
him, angry, however, that a single moment 
should be lost which might make his bearing 
of the light less valuable. There was so much 
noise going on on deck, with the water lash- 
ing the sides and the gale shrieking through 
the cordage, that it was easy enough to mis- 
take a creaking gooseneck, or a speaking block 
for a human voice. But even as they listened, 
faintly, but clearly enough to ears trained as 
were these men's, a human voice came out of 



io6 DOWN to The SEA 

the raging blackness from the direction of the 
breakers on the sands outside them. 

It seemed sheer folly to try and do anything. 
If it were any one alive, nothing could be done 
till morning now, and no one could live out a 
night like this on the Scroby sands in winter. 
Some of the crew, and even the mate, super- 
stitious, were inclined to think it something 
supernatural ; and while they listened and won- 
dered, the Wildfloimr was still scudding be- 
fore the wind on her new course. Home lay 
but half an hour distant now. To the young 
skipper, thinking of his wife and bairns wait- 
ing for him, it meant everything to make the 
harbor while still he could. 

It was with no little surprise, therefore, they 
suddenly heard him shout out in no uncertain 
tones, "All hands stand by to 'bout ship." With 
a lurch and a heavy yaw, and not without 
shipping a nasty bulk of water, the staunch 
little craft once more came head to sea. "Fore- 
sail amidship," "lash her along," "hard down 
with the helm," "every man below but the 
watch," were the skipper's rapid orders. He 
was determined to claw as carefully to wind- 
ward as he could, without inviting destruction. 
"The Lord had stood by me that night," he 



The MATE 107 

told us afterwards, "and I was bound to stand 
by Him if I lost the ship for it." 

A whole hour must have passed before the 
WilMower had regained the ground lost in 
a few minutes. To the skipper taking a hun- 
dred chances of being swept overboard, as his 
little vessel worked to windward in that sea, 
it must have seemed a life-time. But he got 
his reward at last. Once more the weird sound 
came over the noise of the waters, and less 
acute ears than his needed no confirmation that 
it was the wail of a human voice that was call- 
ing for help from the sands. 

"Foresail a-weather; let her lie dead," he 
shouted. "Get a sounding and see if we can 
get near enough to make anything out." 

"Ten fathoms," was the answer. "If it's a 
wreck on the bank, she must be nearer us than 
that would make the bank. We must head 
off till morning, unless the fog clears." 

It was a cruel night for the little vessel, and 
of incessant watchfulness for her crew, as they 
headed on and off the bank all night long, try- 
ing to keep about the same spot by watching 
the soundings. Several times during the night 
great angry combers found their way aboard, 
any one of which, had they been able to hit the 



io8 DOWN to The SEA 

little Wildflozuer fair and squarely, would 
have sent all aboard to death in five minutes. 

When daylight at length broke, nothing was 
to be seen over that watery waste, nor, peer 
into that exasperating fog as they might, could 
they see a thing; while the voice had not been 
heard since midnight. 

Precious hours of daylight once more were 
going by, and even the skipper began to think 
it something supernatural; when suddenly, as 
the Wildflozuer ventured once more as for 
a last effort nearer to the edge of the bank, 
there seemed to spring up out of the water, 
almost alongside of the vessel, looming enor- 
mous in that fog, what appeared to be a huge 
cross, and lashed to it was the body of a young 
man. The illusion was only momentary. The 
men recognised it at once as the royal mast 
and yard of a large ship. The other spars had 
probably been washed away. There was no 
trace of anything else but this gigantic cross. 
The vision closed as quickly as it opened, and 
already again there was nothing but dense fog 
and the waste of raging waters. 

And now a still greater difficulty presented 
itself. How in such a sea-way could they 
ever hope to save this man? A little of that 
manoeuvering, that it takes a sailor to accom- 



The MATE 109 

plish, and then once more the great spar came 
into sig-ht. Carefully working to windward, 
the boat was thrown over the side. Three 
volunteers at once jumped into her, and 
dropped her slowly down towards the spar. 
The man had evidently observed the ma- 
noeuvre, for he had changed his position on 
the cross, and had begun to unwrap the lash- 
ings that held him. But, as carried on a big 
sea, the boat drove by, it became quite obvious 
that by no possible means could they stop to 
get the perishing man into it. With the intu- 
itive resourcefulness of sailors, however, they 
sang out to him as they drove by : "Drop into 
the water as we pass next time. Be ready to 
drop — to drop." 

The Witdflo'wer had now paid off and run 
to leeward of the boat, where she now lay 
waiting to pick her up. For Harry had 
grasped the situation and was ready to execute 
it long before the men told him their arrange- 
ments. After slowly beating to windward, 
towing by a long line the small boat, it was 
once more allowed to drift down towards the 
spar. It was a moment of intense excitement 
to all who were actors in this weird drama. 
But — sure enough — as if he were inspired of 
God — the poor fellow dropped from his perch 



no DOWN to The SEA 

into the boiling sea, just as the boat ap- 
proached. There was just one chance in a 
thousand for his life, and that one he took. 
Surely it must have been ordained that that 
life should be saved, for even as he sank be- 
neath water the boat flew by on a big sea. 
Even those iron-nerved men held their breath 
— ^and then a great shout — for the iron grip of 
the mate had grasped him, and held him as in 
a vice. One heave of that brawny arm, and 
a lad of nineteen lay in the bottom of the 
Wild flower's boat, itself now half full of 
water. 

While the little Wildfiower headed for 
home, those mere fishermen, tender as women, 
nursed back to life before the cabin fire, with 
blankets, massage, and warm tea, the man they 
had saved. Eagerly they chafed his limbs. 
Joyfully they saw signs of life returning. 
Even before the pier heads were turned, they 
had learned it was a large barque that had 
driven right across the Scroby sands, beaten in 
her bottom, and sunk in deep water. All hands 
had perished, as the other spars to which they 
were cling"ing had one by one "gone by board." 
This poor fellow had seen nothing of the 
Wildfiower when he called. He had just 
cried out in his agony, and it had "pleased God 



The MATE iii 

to hear him and deliver him out of his dis- 
tress." 

When Harry Lee was asked why he "hove- 
to" all that dark, dirty night, on so small a 
chance, he replied: "Hadn't the Lord just 
showed He was standing by me. I heard Him 
plainly say: 'Stand by, Harry; stand by.' So 
I just stood by." 

Harry was Admiral of the fleet when last I 
saw his cheery face. Many a "good bag of 
fish" he has had to thank the Lord for since 
that successful voyage. Many a stormy sea 
has he been brought safely through. But he 
tells me that never did God seem so near to 
him — so almost visible — as on that occasion. 

"I suppose it was just when the opening in 
the fog came. He seemed nearest?" I said. 
"No, Doctor; no, not then. It was while we 
stood there 'purring' over that poor lad in the 
cabin, whose life we'd saved. To think that 
the Lord needs a man like me, Doctor, to help 
Him in them simple ways, too. That does 
make the Master seem very near, doesn't it, 
now ?" 

"You are right, Harry," I replied. "To 
serve one another is the road that always leads 
us closest to Him." 



VI. 

''Cut Bono." 

IT was a veritable day of sick calls. 
From the Straits to the northwest of us 
two calls had come; from the bay to the 
south two calls had come; from the extreme 
point of land to the northeast, close to where 
the land's end projects into the Atlantic, two 
more had come. My colleague had left only 
two days previously for the west coast, and 
had that morning managed to send back a line 
to me saying a still more urgent call had 
switched him off to the little community that 
gathered round our lumber mill, where he 
would have to cross the country over some 
70 miles of uninhabited wilderness if he wished 
to reach his original destination by the short- 
est route. 

The climax was reached, when, just as I had 
decided which route to start on, a herder was 
brought in from our deer camp with a bad 
112 



"CUI BONO" 113 

axe cut in his foot. It so happened my sec- 
ond team of dogs was also away, this time 
with two men specially appointed constables, 
for we keep no regulars in stock. They were 
seeking a couple of troublesome fellows whom 
we wanted for trial the following afternoon. 
Procurable teams are as scarce here at this sea- 
son of the year as vegetable food will be by 
the end of March. But, as Providence would 
have it, just as I got through the essential work 
at hospital next morning, a good friend of 
mine with a fine smart team passed near 
enough to be commandeered, and an hour later 
we were whisking off to the northward over 
a good hard snow trail. Our path led us over 
high barrens, whence as we swept down 
through a notch in the hills the still standing 
foremast of an old wreck caught my driver's 
eye, and he suddenly broke the silence. "Is 
you'se going to give Harry a call. Doctor?" 
It was a reflex from the stimulus of the old 
wreck. For all the shore knew Harry had 
speculated in her and hadn't yet in two years 
succeeded in tearing a single plank off her solis 
sida. 

"A spell would do the dogs good," I re- 
plied. "I'm for going." A reply our know- 
ing little leader seemed to have anticipated. 



114 DOWN to The SEA 

for she needed but a single shout of "Kp orf* 
— which is dog lingo for "keep off" — and our 
komatik, swinging to the right, was flying 
down the decline, and a moment later the dogs 
brought up abruptly at Harry's wood pile. 
Every dog on the shore knows the one and 
only place dogs go to in this village while 
their masters halt half an hour for some mys- 
terious purpose. So accustomed on this ac- 
count are all the inhabitants in this isolated 
village to seeing visitors, that our arrival 
aroused no interest. Even Harry's own dogs 
scarcely troubled to get up and enjoy the cus- 
tomary fight with strangers. 

As we sat round with our cups of tea we 
ventured on the usual apology for billeting 
ourselves freely upon our friend. For the 
first time in his whole life he was hors de com- 
hat — stretched out on the humble wood settle 
with that trouble of so many sailor men, a 
"kink in the back." His is that inimitable 
smile that never comes off. But this time it 
really was mixed with an irrepressible comical 
twinge, as now and again the enemy in the 
back called for recognition. "In spite of the 
poor fishery, Harry, I see the old mast still 
points to your free hotel." He laughed and 
said: "Oh, you'se only the fourth lot to-day, 



"GUI BONO" 115; 

Doctor, and you're more than welcome this 
time. I didn't like to trouble you, but now you 
is here, you might have a pill or a plaster of 
something to do my back good." "If we were 
only the fourth to visit you to-day, how many 
do you expect to make tea for on an ordinary- 
day?" 

"Well," said his wife from the stove, where 
she was putting a further polish on the already 
spotless tea-pot, "I gets fairly tired of making 
tea sometimes, there's enough drunken in this 
house to float that old schooner long ago. I 
counted forty-eight that came one day to us 
this fall." Her remarks seemed greatly to 
amuse our host. "You has to do it or get out," 
he interrupted. "You can't see a fellow sitting 
looking on and doing nothing like an owl on 
hill top. I minds one week I hauled a whole 
bag o' hard bread on a Monday. It ought to 
have lasted us three months. But come Sat- 
urday night there weren't enough left for 
'brew's' for Sunday morning breakfast, and 
that was beyond all, the loaf the old woman 
could bake in six days. It's mighty hard to 
last out alongside the komatik track." 

Time only permitted altogether a few min- 
utes delay, and while the dogs were being re- 
hamessed, I hurried down to see one or two 



ii6 DOWN to TUe SEA 

sicic folios in the little cottages, around whose 
inmates had suddenly taken to the fortuitous 
presence of a doctor. The sunshiny optimism 
of our host, however, had itself been well 
worth the doctor, and it sent us on our way 
feeling kinder toward the world in general. A 
few more miles covered, a frozen arm of the 
sea crossed, a long shoot down a steep hillside 
onto a pretty harbor under steep cliffs, and 
the loud shouts of a man running out after us 
over the moor, indicated the direction of our 
first patient's house. It was the usual poor 
house of a young man with a large family, not 
yet old enough to help him. The little outer 
room literally crowded (as is the custom of 
the countryside) with all the neighbors sym- 
pathizing. 'Twas scarcely divided from the 
inside room by a crazy single board partition. 
In contrast to the religious silence that always 
reigns outside at these times came the sudden 
sharp cries of a patient delirious from brain 
trouble due to tuberculosis. 

It is no easy matter to make a diagnosis that 
satisfies one's own mind under circumstances 
of this kind, which to one conscious of the in- 
creasing exactness rendered possible by up-to- 
date science, distresses one, quite as much as 
it perplexes. But when it come to treatment, 



"GUI BONO" 117 

and one felt the terrible issues at stake, for 
the little children who looked for food to this 
man fighting for his life, one felt increasingly 
miserable. The poor fellow was too ill to 
carry to hospital, with the snow and ice as 
rotten as it is now becoming. There could be 
no nurse or skilled assistant to carry out one's 
orders here, and anyhow, none of the little 
requisites for such a case was procurable. As 
I return to my dogs and sledge to run away, 
as it were, and leave this weight of sorrow be- 
hind me, I craved eagerly for the cause of the 
optimism of our friend of the morning, rather 
than for the forgetfulness of the sorrows of 
others which serves to solace some folk. For 
that cause I know to be the simple natural 
trust of a child in a Father above who loves 
him and over-rules all for good. 

But a new kind of sorrow was to engage 
our attention next, and it came as a sharp con- 
trast to this, for it was all of man's making. 
For many years a feud had existed between 
two of the larger families of this northern 
peninsula. These are rare troubles in this cold 
climate. But here, like those elsewhere, once 
they get started, they do not fail to grow till 
misunderstanding led to misrepresentation, 
mistrust, and reprisal had been met by reprisal. 



ii8 DOWN to The SEA 

and now two actions for damages, the first we 
knew of anywhere around here, were awaiting 
settlement. 

For my part, it had been with great reluc- 
tance I had ever assumed the function of 
judge over men. But if might is not to mean 
right, then service of no mean importance can 
be rendered at times, even among our people, 
services which they could have no means of 
obtaining were some one not willing to volun- 
tarily fill that office. We are far too scattered 
to maintain a paid judge of our own, and too 
busy to quarrel, or even worry with settling 
old strifes when communication is open in 
summer and when it would be possible for a 
judge to come to us. It was too late to begin 
a trial this day, so gathering all hands from 
far and near we tried to inculcate with the 
magic lantern that we had carried along with 
us some sorely needed lessons in public health, 
emphasized by just such sorrowful instances 
as that in the house we had last visited. 

The excitement of a real trial is here suffi- 
ciently novel as yet to aflFord trees and even 
traps a day's rest, if news is carried round in 
time. Our evening's assembly coming from 
every direction took good care such a titbit of 
news should not be allowed to escape for want 



" cm BONO" 119 

of telling. The result was evident when next 
morning in the school house, commandeered 
for the occasion, I found myself facing prac- 
tically all the worthies of the countryside, ar- 
rayed in their Sunday best, filling every spare 
inch of space in our impromptu court house. 

The problems were none of them easy of 
solution to us. Neither plaintiff nor defendant 
having had any previous experience of this 
kind, it was necessary to permit several infor- 
mal adjournments of each case, while some 
important but forgotten witness was sum- 
moned. While our special constables jour- 
neyed hither and thither one of the other 
cases was proceeded with, so that I found 
afterwards some of our local oracles even 
had got mixed up as to which case was 
actually being tried. We are not^ alas, a 
studious people, and as the process of cross- 
questioning droned on, the "public," accus- 
tomed to come rapidly to conclusions by in- 
tuitive processes, began to show the usual local 
signs of failing interest. I was forced to call 
the attention of the court to their method of 
betraying this fact, and that just over their 
heads, in large, plain letters, was printed the 
trite aphorism, "Don't spit," because the rav- 
ages of tuberculosis on even so healthy a coast 



I20 DOWN to The SEA 

as this are very considerable, and had been 
only too vividly impressed upon me again at 
the bedside of the friend we had just left. So 
unconscious do the offenders become of their 
habit of spitting that I have been forced to 
arrest and prosecute a friend for spitting in 
the church of which he was a most devoted 
adherent, and to reprimand a visitor who had 
scarcely finished chiding his own son for spit- 
ting, on my complaining of the offense, before 
in his own excitement he was himself guilty 
of the same act. 

To maintain the interest and impress on as 
large an audience as possible the lessons I 
hoped the cases would teach them, when the 
hour came for dinner I told them the judg- 
ments in all the cases would be given at the 
end of the proceeding in the afternoon — like 
prizes at a race meeting — a device which acted 
well, for I found every man had his mind made 
up, and was really only waiting to hear the 
punishments meted out. 

At length when everything that ought to 
be said, or could be said, had been said by 
everyone that could contribute, or thought he 
could contribute, to make things either clearer 
or more muddled, we summed up exactly as if 
making a diagnosis. One of the defendants, 



''GUI BONO" 121 

a local trader, and another local trader's wife, 
were found guilty of malicious slander; the 
third defendant won his case. The local im- 
portance of the two convicted, and the long- 
deferred end of this unusual occurrence, had 
worked up an excitement, which was very evi- 
dent as I scanned the faces of the crowd. It 
was just what I had hoped might be the re- 
sult; or if our people are not interested, it 
would be just as well to waste wisdom on so 
many codfish, for they possess an unique ca- 
pacity for absenting their minds when their 
bodies are present, almost as some have in 
church when "sitting under" a sermon. The 
law regarding the fine or imprisonment which 
the magistrate might inflict was first read — 
then explained — then re-read and re-explained, 
in order to impress on all present the serious 
view the law of man takes of the act of speak- 
ing evil. The Bible view, the sin of the thing 
as among God's children, was then pointed out 
— a view on which our people lay much more 
stress than even fear of man's law inspires — 
and lastly, the crime against the obligations 
which had been solemnly accepted by these 
two men as brothers in the same lodge of a 
great society was also referred to. This, judg- 
ing from the time and energy devoted to it, 



122 DOWN to The SEA 

only ranks second in importance in their minds 
to the Mosaic law. To the court, the defend- 
ant and plaintiff, it was then explained, that 
the judge got no fees for his work, so silver 
and gold had not induced him to devote so 
long a time to the trial. As a judge's decision 
is always without exception torn to pieces by 
local wiseacres, it could not be a desire for 
popularity either that actuated him. It was 
reasonable to suppose, therefore, it was under- 
taken with a desire to do some good. 

My nearest colleague on the bench is a 
schoolmaster, living some sixty miles away, 
and it was explained quite clearly that he might 
look on the law as a retributive agent to meta- 
phorically flog evildoers, while a doctor must 
be pardoned for regarding it as a remedial 
agent and intended to cure the wrong it is 
applied to. It was then suggested to the crowd 
that each one should for one minute consider 
what would be his own verdict if it were in- 
tended to prove a benefit for the commimity. 

It was pointed out that the best result that 
could accrue from this trial would obviously 
be a lasting friendship between the hostile fam- 
ilies, so that once more people who worshipped 
side by side might say the Lord's Prayer with 
somewhat less compunction. The plaintiff, it 



"CUI BONO" 123 

was said, had expressed his sentiments by say- 
ing that the best day in his life would be if he 
could see the defendant fined fifty dollars, 
while the court was very well aware that such 
a fine would be a very serious matter to the 
defendant's family. Nor would the law be jus- 
tifying its existence and evincing its prestige 
by making the quarrel ten times greater and in 
addition injuring innocent persons. Could the 
seizing of fifty paltry dollars be a testimonial 
to the law's efficiency as a remedial agent? In 
the second case it was practically a family af- 
fair, and in this small isolated community even 
brothers and sisters were letting years of life 
slip by without so much as speaking to one 
another. What satisfaction would it be if the 
result of the work done was to make this 
quarrel still more bitter, and probably, seeing 
the age of the parties, effectually prevent any 
possibility of reconciliation during the remain- 
der of their stay on earth ? 

The plaintiff was asked if he would be satis- 
fied with a frank and free apology made before 
the assembled court and a promise in each case 
that henceforth they would all endeavor to live 
as those who call God their Father ought to 
do — in peace and harmony. He was told it 
was probably the one chance of his life to 



124 DOWN to The SEA 

show that there dwelt in his own heart, any- 
how, the spirit, which in his case he com- 
plained so bitterly had not been exhibited 
towards himself. The excitement of the court 
rose to fever pitch, as the plaintiff, under con- 
siderable excitement, now took council of the 
judge. When at length he suddenly rose, 
walked across the floor and shook hands with 
his enemy, the court couldn't longer contain 
its feelings. In spite of the vigorous suppres- 
sion of all conversation or comment during the 
trial, a very new experience to most of these 
men, every one burst into loud applause, and 
in less than two minutes the majority of my 
audience were lighting innumerable pipes out- 
side in the dusk with their heads all in a 
bunch. 

I have never found it easy to speak harshly 
to a woman. But the second defendant needed 
it, and I did my best. She is a really kind- 
hearted woman and already gray-haired — but 
with the unfortunate affliction of a tongue that 
is too long. The circumstances under which 
advice is given has a good deal to do with its 
effectiveness, and the psychical effect of the 
presence of all one's neighbors in one large 
crowd is not to be overlooked. It was some 
little trouble to collect my court again. But 



"CVI BONO" 125 

our cool atmosphere outside came to my assis- 
tance, and it was easy to tell their presence, 
and it helped in no small degree to carry home 
the lesson. The troublesome symptoms of long 
tongues were referred to, the danger to a com- 
munity of that trouble getting into it was em- 
phasized. The expense to purse and person- 
ality of long tongues was not merely stated, 
but reiterated. The plaintiff this time only 
refused to be the first to cross the floor. This 
caused some little trouble, for the old lady, in 
her sudden contrition, forgot she had to get 
pardon, and commenced by freely forgiving the 
plaintiff. However, after a fresh start mat- 
ters were satisfactorily adjusted, and for the 
first time in many years these two relatives 
and neighbors went home together. Part of 
the sentence was that they were to have tea 
together in the plaintiff's house the next night, 
but as I had to leave for my distant little hos- 
pital by daylight, I was not able to be a guest 
at this feast. 

It was a chill and bitter morning and dawn 
was only just breaking as I once more drove 
off to the forlorn little house of the sick man 
I had been called to. On my arrival, I guessed 
that matters were no better. It didn't take 
long to convince me that the victory here lay 



126 DOWN to The SEA 

with the enemy, and that the end was not far 
off. The poor wife and children couldn't fully 
realize yet all that this would mean to them 
down here. It would mean, at any rate, all 
that the most irreparable loss could mean to 
mortals anywhere. As I drove over the high 
barrens behind the swinging team of dogs, 
the exhilarating stimulus of the exquisite 
air made one feel what a glorious thing life 
is. It made it seem doubly sad that this father 
of a young family should be called thus sud- 
denly to leave it in the prime of life. And yet, 
the very beauty of life made it sure that God 
on high ruled wisely. It was good to think 
that at least death's real sting, which I still be- 
lieve to be conscious wrong doing, was absent 
from this case. Meanwhile the very pathos of 
the thing made the other cases seem doubly 
piteous. Here we are allowed at best but a 
brief sojourn on earth — the making that stay 
hideous by acts of our own folly has nothing 
whatever to plead for itself. I was returning 
with the consciousness of failure in the first 
case. It was a little comfort to be able to hope 
that a lesson had been taught in the second 
that through "only the law" might possibly 
prove a real measure of grace in some one's 
life. 



VII. 

Queer Problems for a Missionary. 

MY little hospital steamer, the Strath- 
cona, was pouring out a cloud of 
black smoke as she still lay at anchor 
off the Fur Trading Company's post in North 
Labrador — she was getting steam to carry us 
once more down the bay, not to come north 
again till the long months of winter had 
rolled away, and the ice, which was already 
strong on the fresh water ponds, should have 
yielded to the June sun. 

The agent, who had recently come to the 
post, was watching the weighing-in and call- 
ing of a boat-load of salmon that a belated 
dealer had brought in over night, 

"Morning," he shouted cheerily, as I tied up 
the dingey and started up the ladder. "You 
aren't going to leave us yet, are you?" he 
asked, looking at the smoke issuing in a 
steady stream from our funnel. 
127 



128 DOWN to The SEA 

"It looks like it," I answered. "Why do 
you ask ? Is there anything more I can do for 
you?" "Well, I can't break a limb to have 
an excuse for keeping a sawbones around," he 
laughed, "and I haven't any more appendices 
to offer, but I wanted to talk to you about 
Tommy Mitchell and his family." 

"If you'll come along and give that poor 
fellow a chance to get one salmon through as 
'No. I,' I'll be all ears." He laughed good- 
humoredly, and we started arm in arm to 
walk up and down the big raised wood plat- 
form. 

"Full speed ahead, old friend — I'll have to 
make tracks when the whistle goes — ^you 
know we've no fuel to throw away." "It's this 
way. Doctor, Old Tom has been at the post 
every Saturday now for two months. He's 
dead broke. I've allowed him twenty pounds 
of dry flour a week for himself and his five 
children. He hasn't a salmon or a codfish to 
turn in, and he owed more than he can ever 
pay when I came here. My wife was down to 
see the family last week, and I'm bothered if 
Mrs. Tom hadn't flown in the face of Provi- 
dence with a sixth baby. A woman can't nurse 
babies on dry flour, and Tom hasn't a farm at 
his disposal. We oflFered to take the baby 



QUEER PROBLEMS 129 

and nurse it here for her for a couple of 
months, but she wouldn't part with it, and 
there isn't tinned milk here for her to feed it 
with." 

Just at that moment a jet of steam shot up 
from the Strathcona, and almost immediate- 
ly her shrill whistle, echoing and re-echoing* 
from the cliffs, warned us to come to the point. 
"What can I do to help out?" I asked. "Why, 
call in and see them on your way, can't you?" 
"Where are they now?" "Somewhere on the 
island off Napaktok Point." "Have they a 
house there?" "No, nor a tent either — they 
are camping under their own hats, if they have 
any, it seems." 

"Well, good-bye till we meet again — thanks 
for Tom's address. The island is a large one, 
but we'll try and find him and send you word 
what we do. There's the whistle again — I 
shall be in trouble — good-bye again." "Good- 
bye," he shouted, and the kindly little agent 
started off to haul down the famous "Pro Pelle 
Cutem" flag to salute our departure. After 
only an hour's steaming we were opposite the 
north end of Tom's island, so I gave the en- 
gine room "stand by," and, telling my skipper 
to "heave to," and keep a good offing till I 
returned, we lowered away our dory, and with 



130 DOWN to The SEA 

"Bill," my stalwart mate, I rowed in to the 
land. 

"Do you see anything like a house any- 
where, Bill? Your eyes are better than mine, 
I know." "No, sir, I sees nothing," Bill said. 
"I didn't expect you to do as well as that. 
However, let me know when you see something 
like a house. I want to find the residence of 
Thomas Mitchell and his family." 

We started to row almost round the island — 
for there was a stiff head wind, and dories are 
light on the water. Cove after cove went by 
— ^headland succeeded headland — and only the 
certainty: "Well, it must really be round the 
next corner," kept us toiling at it. 

"There's a smoke, sir," said Bill at last, star- 
ing into a rather larger cove than usual. 
"Come on. Bill. If you can see nothing, I 
can't — where is it?" 

Bill was right, however — there was a feeble 
smoke fighting its way up the side of a preci- 
pice face, but no sign of any residence could 
we see. 

However, we landed, hauled up our boat, 
and went on a voyage of discovery, till at last 
we ran down a little fire-place in the open, 
by which sat a gaunt woman with a wizened 
baby on one arm, and stirring a sorry looking 



QUEER PROBLEMS 131 

gruel in what appeared to be an old paint can 
with the other hand. "Good morning. Where's 
the tent?" I asked. "There she is," replied 
the woman, pointing with the gruel stick to a 
sorry roofing of matting and patches of can- 
vas, which was stretched over some well-trod- 
den mud against the cliff face. "Why do you 
cook in the open?" "'Cos we hasn't got no 
stove." "Where's Tom?" "He's away wid 
Johnnie trying to shoot a gull — here. Bill, 
run and fetch yer dad, and tell him Doctor 
wants 'un" — whereupon a half-naked urchin 
of about nine years promptly disappeared into 
the bushes. "What's the matter with the 
baby?" I asked. "Hungry," she replied. "I 
hasn't no milk to give him." She proceeded 
to show me the baby, which kept whimpering 
continually, like a little lamb bleating. "It's 
half-starved," I said. "What do you give it?" 
"Flour and berries," was her answer. "I 
chews the loaf first, or it ain't no good for 
him" — thus showing she had discovered a 
physiological truth. 

A little girl of about five and a boy of seven 
now emerged from behind the tent, where 
they had fled upon our arrival. Both were, 
to all intents and purposes stark naked, and 
yet as brown and fat as Rubens' cherubs. It 



132 DOWN to The SEA 

was snowing a little, and the cold had over- 
come their shyness and driven them to seek 
the warmth of the fire. "I'm glad to see the 
other children are fat," I said. "They bees 
eatin' berries all the time," she replied, 
"What's t' good of t' gover'ment," she sud- 
denly demanded. "Here is we all's starvin', 
and it's ne'er a crust they gives yer — there 
bees a sight o' pork and butter in t' company's 
store — but it's ne'er a sight of 'im us ever gets 
— what are them doin'? T' agent, he says 
he can't give Tom no mor'n dry flour — and 
folks can't live on dat." I was beginning to 
unfold to her the functions of a government, 
when a shuffling figure, with a very old, rusty, 
single-barrel, muzzle-loading gun, followed by 
two boys, appeared on the scene. He was 
somewhat shame-faced, I thought, carrying a 
dead sea-gull by one wing. 

"You've had some luck, Tom," I remarked, 
inwardly referring to the fact that he had 
safely discharged the antique weapon without 
doing destruction at the wrong end. "It's 
only a kitty," he replied, "and I've been a-sit- 
tin' out on t' point all day." A "kitty" is only 
a small gull, and Tom's tone of contempt was 
actuated entirely by the size of the victim. 
Tom's standard of values was graded solely 



QUEER PROBLEMS 133 

by bulk, and involved no reflection whatever 
on the variegated assortment of flavors that 
these scavengers succeed in combining in one 
carcase. 

"The gun isn't heavy enough to kill the big 
gulls, I suppose." "I hasn't much powder," he 
replied, "and ne'er a bit o' shot. I mostly puts 
a handful o' they round stones in her — t' ham- 
mer don't always set her off, neither. Her 
springs bees too old, I reckon," he said, play- 
ing with that extremely loosely attached ap- 
pendage in a way that made me ask him to let 
me hold the weapon for a minute while I 
looked at it. Needless to say, I took good care 
to keep it in my hands till our business was 
through. 

The truth is, Tom was reared on a truck sys- 
tem of trade, and had been all his life a depen- 
dent of others. He had never had the incen- 
tive to really look out for himself, for he had 
never been able to get clear of debt. This, and 
his Eskimo blood, left him bereft of all initia- 
tive, and so incapable, except when under or- 
ders from others, of earning a livelihood. 

"Tom," I said, "I want to help you — winter 
is coming on, and you have nothing whatever 
to face it with. The only thing I can think 
of is for you to let me take charge of your two 



FI34 DOWN to The SEA 

little boys, 'Billy' and 'Yimmy,'' and the little 
g-irl. I'll feed them and clothe them, and send 
them to school till they can come back and help 
you along — and so long as they are with me 
I'll do my best to help you along also. They 
will certainly starve here during the winter — 
the snow is covering up the berries already, 
and you have nothing else." But poor Tom 
made no answer. He simply stood, his mouth 
wide open, and stared into space. "T' Doctor 
wants to take t' children," broke in the sharp- 
tongned wife. "Don't youse hear what un 
says? T'is the gover'ment that ought to feed 
'em here, I says. I wouldn't let no children o' 
mine go, I wouldn't" — and she cuddled the 
wizened babe up closer, as if I had been about 
to pounce on that bag of bones and fly ofif with 
it like an eagle. 

It took quite a long while to convince her 
that what a government "ought to do" would 
not feed six children — especially as that gov- 
ernment was so far away that we couldn't ex- 
pect an answer before Christmas if we wrote 
to them. As for Tom, the intricacies of the 
problem had entirely failed to penetrate his 
dullard cranium, and yet, perplexed as he 
was, he showed the great wisdom of saying 
nothing. 



QUEER PROBLEMS 135 

"Why doesn't youse say something?" his 
irate spouse at last insisted. "Bees you a-goin' 
to let t' Doctor have youse childer?" But 
Tom only looked more and more puzzled, and 
merely reflected by taking off his hat and 
scratching his head. 

Matters seemed to have come to a deadlock, 
when Tom, with a burst of eloquence suddenly 
ejaculated, "I suppose he knows." Backed by 
this moral support, I again advanced to the 
attack, and at length succeeded in extracting 
from Mrs. Tom : "Well, youse can take Billy, 
I suppose, if you wants un." 

During this prolonged debate my excellent 
mate had not ventured on a single word, 
though he was, in spite of his athletic dimen- 
sions, a most tender hearted father of many 
children. At this juncture, however, he cast 
propriety to the winds, and butted full into the 
debate by simply seizing the struggling Billy 
and putting him, kicking, under one arm, for 
he had in his mind the cheerful little Children's 
Home we had built near our southern hospi- 
tal, and was familiar with the wonderful trans- 
formations that had been enacted there in other 
children that had been entrusted to us. But 
I had yet a hope of saving more of the chil- 
dren, and profiting by the evident resentment 



136 DOWN to The SEA 

of Billy to be isolated from those he was fa- 
miliar with, I pressed home on the mother how 
terribly lonely one child alone would be. I 
soon perceived that my logic was having its 
effect on her defenses, and with fresh vigor 
proceeded to show her the advisability of send- 
ing a bunch together for company's sake. But 
J seemed somehow to make no headway till 
Tom, whose eyes had been glued to his strug- 
gling offspring, once more came to my rescue 
with his philosophy. 

What it was impressed him so strongly, I 
can't yet say, but he broke in most oppor- 
tunely once more with his "I says he knows 
what's for t' best," and then as promptly re- 
lapsed into the impregnable position of a deaf 
mute. I had already occupied much time — the 
snowstorm was all the while growing heavier, 
and white horses were capping the sea, to 
match the fast growing whiteness of the land. 
The "Strathcona," which had followed us 
round the island, was evidently very uneasy, 
and already had blown her whistle several 
times to hurry us up. A final promise of a 
better gun for Tom, with a stock of powder 
and shot, of some spare old clothes for all the 
rest of the family, and of a note to the agent 
to give work, if the worst came to the worst, 



QUEER PROBLEMS 137 

induced Mrs. Tom to consent at last to my 
having "Ji^n^y" ^s well as "Billy." 

The subtlest argument I could advance 
seemed to make no impression on the enemy. 
I compared the tent with our fine house — I 
pointed to the mere semblance of a boat that 
was all they had to convey their family over a 
hundred miles in up to their winter station. 
I spoke of fine clothes, the schooling, etc., that 
we would give the baby girl if only she was 
allowed to come with us, and did my best to 
save her from the seeming starvation ahead 
of her. But all my blandishments fell on deaf 
ears — nothing I could say would tempt Tom 
to emerge again from his impenetrable silence, 
and I had at length to acknowledge discomfit- 
ure. My faithful mate, Bill, however, who 
had halted half way to the beach with his first 
prize, had no intention of risking the acquisi- 
tion of a second, and long before I was 
through with the arrangements he was climb- 
ing into our dory with Billy under one arm and 
Jimmy under the other, their protesting lower 
extremities that stuck out behind notwith- 
standing. 

We did not, however, fail to make good the 
rest of our bargain. The entire remnant of 
the family were conducted on board the 



138 DOWN to The SEA 

"Strathcona". They were fitted out with suit- 
able clothing from the stock sent me by 
friends, and part of which is always in the 
strong box on the mission steamer's deck; be- 
sides which, some of my generous seamen con- 
tributed from their kits. A gun was loaned to 
Tom — his own old relic was overhauled and 
repaired by our engineer, to be given to John, 
the eldest boy, who was big enough to help 
with the hunt. Powder and shot were pro- 
duced, tins of condensed milk were extracted 
from the ship's stock for the baby, our second 
axe was donated to their impoverished equip- 
ment, and indeed, a heterogeneous collection, 
which included some needles and thread, soap, 
and other trifles in a couple of oil bags that 
had been sent us for sailors' use, all found their 
way into the Mitchell family's dilapidated 
houseboat. Before they left the paternal 
mate had Billy and Jimmy on shore in so well 
advanced a state of scrubbing and hair cutting, 
that Tom and his wife would have less diffi- 
culty in recognizing them when they shall re- 
turn in the days to come. For this last im- 
pression of them, scrubbed and in clean clothes, 
formed a very marked contrast with that which 
they presented in their rags on the island. 
The boys soon got over a very, very short 



QUEER PROBLEMS 139 

attack of homesickness, and neither of them 
was in the least affected by the tossing and 
the tumble of the sea. 

Already Jimmy and Billy are numbered 
among the best scholars we have in our home. 
(They are bright, affectionate, laughing boys — 
Billy a veritable Saxon, with his light hair 
and blue eyes. Jimmy takes after his mother, 
having the black hair and deep brown eyes of 
his Eskimo extraction. As they rush down to 
greet us now, and "purr" out their affection 
like pleased kittens, we shudder to think of 
what might have happened if we hadn't "hap- 
pened along" at the beginning of the winter. 

But, after all, do things just happen by 
chance ? Or does the love of our Father above 
us watch over the least of these little ones; 
and is it to His love we owe these unequaled 
opportunities of tasting the real joys of life. 
Christ the Master said of all such, "Let the 
little ones come unto me" — and it is one of the 
profoundest joys of those who believe that in 
their own lives can live again the spirit of the 
Master, who was the word or message of 
God's love to his children, to believe also that 
He considers love shown to the least of these, 
His little ones, as really shown to Himself. 
Faith that man really has opportunity to 



140 DOWN to The SEA 

achieve things for God is the real incentive 
that the twentieth century world needs to at- 
tract every man into His service — that is, to 
follow him. 



VIII. 

''Every Little Helps" 

WE had been invited to dine in one 
of the best houses in the city just 
before leaving once again for our 
northern district. Winter was already as far ad- 
vanced as we dare let it be before sailing. Even 
now the time had already passed when it had 
been last year any longer possible for the 
plucky little mail boat to force her way as far 
as our northern port, owing to the rapidly 
forming ice, and it was only the telegraphic 
advice from Newfoundland of the exception- 
ally mild fall that permitted us to linger so 
late. 

Naturally our thoughts were much on the 
conditions that awaited us, and while the su- 
perb ornate furnishings pleased the eye, and 
course following course of the menu furnished 
the most subtle and inviting satisfaction to the 
141 



142 DOWN to The SEA 

palate, and the cultured conversation was of 
those at whose feet one might at any time be 
glad to sit and listen, still none of these fur- 
nished bonds strong enough to check our 
minds from roaming to far different scenes, 
where homes are furnished only with things 
essential, where the most important question 
concerning food is, can sufficient be obtained 
to nourish, and where culture necessarily is 
that of a life schooled close to nature, and talk 
is limited by the simple mental evolution ren- 
dered possible by a life in the woods and on 
the sea, with often no opportunity of acquir- 
ing the three "R's." 

Our distinguished host happened to be an 
authority on scientific dietetics, and conversa- 
tion having turned to an attempt we are mak- 
ing to secure a milk supply by importing and 
herding Lapland reindeer, the methods of ster- 
ilizing and preserving milk for children was 
discussed. Our host spoke in the very highest 
terms of the great success of the method 
known as the "Hatmaker process," of which 
we had no practical experience. The most 
eloquent tribute he paid it, however, was next 
day when I found in my office a large box 
bearing the appropriate title of "Mammala," 
and containing many tins of the dried and ster- 



EVERY LITTLE HELPS 143 

ilized »"iilk, which had been sent as a gift by 
him towards our baby-food problem. 

We had reached our destination some time. 
It was now in the very depths of winter, snow 
lay six feet on the ground, and with us days 
are short and nights long. Owing to driving 
snow, it had been gloomy outside all day. I 
had been on a long round of visits among our 
people, and had just got home. Indeed, I could 
still hear the angry conversation of my sledge 
dogs, who were having difficulties over the 
seal carcass that had been thrown into their 
pen for supper, like the modern Daniel into a 
den of lions. 

Personally, I hate to confess to being tired, 
even to myself. But after a winter's journey 
here, even if it is only of one day's duration, 
a log fire on an open hearth, and a comfortable 
pair of shoes, have, I admit, begun to have at- 
tractions peculiarly their own, especially to- 
night with the contrast outside. 

There were still the day's medicines to make 
up and the "little things" accumulated during 
the day to see to, and the hospital rounds to 
make, as my colleague had been away some 
three weeks with his dogs ; so I did not posi- 
tively welcome the information that a man 
from a village to the north of us was waiting 



144 DOWN to The SEA 

to see me. Here, however, is just where to-day 
real Christ-following finds its test and its tri- 
umphs. I did my best to at least look as if I 
were glad to see him. He was an old friend, 
of our sturdiest and best type. He still had 
keen eyes, under shaggy eyebrows, long since 
adapted in their color to this northern environ- 
ment, while his plentiful crop of crisp curly 
hair would hardly any longer pass for a "silver 
gray"; the color of all others our trappers are 
glad to see when a fox is snared in their traps. 
"Uncle Ephriam ! Well, whatever is it brings 
you out here to-night?" "To see you, Doctor," 
he replied. "To tell the truth, me and the old 
woman's in trouble." "No sickness, I hope^ — ■ 
well, isn't she?" "Yes, Mary is well. Doctor, 
and yet — no she isn't. 'Deed I can't hardly 
tell you. Doctor, for I don't know how to say 
it. But, Doctor, Mary will be a mother this 
week — and us knowed nothing about it." 

A week or more later a pale, forlorn-looking 
girl followed Uncle Ephriam into my study. 
"I've brought her over to see 5'ou herself, Doc- 
tor; I didn't know no other way," he said, and 
there was an inexpressible sadness in his voice. 
There is no need to narrate this interview. It 
was the old, old story, where duty to self and 
to loved ones, and to God is forgotten in the 



EVERY LITTLE HELPS 145 

yielding to one great passion. It was only the 
same tragedy that the moth at evening enacts 
around the open light. Everything is forgot- 
ten or unheeded till suddenly the singed wings 
no longer support the weight they have carried. 
The hollow sham of it all is of a sudden hide- 
ously revealed, and downfall and disaster faces 
us, and that, alas, before the steps of folly can 
be retraced. 

The baby was not wanted. Poor little mite, 
it was just a speck of wailing humanity, and 
**Aunt Eliza, and all who'd seed it, said it 
couldn't live anyhow." But though natural in- 
stincts may not always insure proper care be- 
ing taken of helpless infants, our law is still 
sufficiently potent to provide for that emer- 
gency. The father was traced and summoned. 
His whole visible punishment being to have to 
find the pittance the law considers essential for 
maintaining the life of the child. The poor 
baby was still, however, not wanted. It thus 
became one function of the court to suitably 
dispose of it. It seemed an odd perquisite for 
an amateur judge to be called on to adminis- 
ter such a property. Of older children, found 
derelict, I had annexed already quite a number, 
but what could I do with this helpless burden? 
Volunteers, however, were found in a young 



146 DOWN to The SEA 

couple who were qualified by the position they 
had obtained through successful fishing, and 
who, being themselves childless, were moved 
to desire in their home the child, life that God, 
in his good Providence, had till now withheld 
from them. So the problem seemed solved, 
and there was every likelihood of our settling 
down into the usual routine of work again. 

Christmas trees on our coast don't always 
bear their fruits by Christmas Day. For 
though Santa Claus is presumably a past mas- 
ter in ice and snow problems, there are diffi- 
culties connected with winter travel on this 
coast that we find every winter makes him 
late at some of the smaller villages. Thus it 
happened just a week later that this welcome 
stranger whose visits were angelic, as well in 
their rarity as in the joy they bring, came to 
Uncle Ephriam's village. It also happened 
that I was called to meet him there once more. 
As we finished dressing the tree, and were 
looking round for a free hotel for supper be- 
fore the children came, I noticed a man wait- 
ing patiently outside the door. 

"Good evening, Doctor." 

"Good evening, friend. Where do you come 
from?" 

"You knows me, Doctor. It is Andrew. 



EVERY LITTLE HELPS 147 

Jess wants you to come and see your baby. 
It's going to die, I'm a-feared, after all." 

"Why, Anc ew, I didn't know you in the 
dark. I'll come right over now, and Jessie 
shall get me a cup o' tea." 

"That's right. Doctor, she'll be ever so glad 
to see you." 

It is only a little cottage, but ever so neat 
and tidy. When I entered a bright fire was 
burning in the grate, and a steaming kettle 
singing its joyful anthem in defiance of the 
cold outside in general, and of Santa Claus in 
particular. He, for private reasons, was sol- 
emnly endeavoring to hide a large bag of 
duck's feathers under the somewhat dilap- 
idated old hospital dressing gown, which al- 
lowed room even for his broad shoulders, but 
clearly called elsewhere for more rotundity 
than his anatomy was designed to supply. 

"What is the trouble with the baby, Jessie? 
I heard you thought the world of it. Surely 
you can't be wanting me to tell you which is 
the right end of it?" "The baby is all right, I 
thinks, Doctor, but we has no cow, and nothing 
to give it — except pork and molasses and loaf, 
and that don't seem to suit it." "Well, that's 
odd. I'm quite sure Arctic babies could have 
insides made specially for the country, if you 



148 DOWN to The SEA 

had the planning of them, Jessie. It does seem 
a shame they can't live on ice and snow, when 
there's such a terrible lot of it around." 
"Uncle Ephriam sends us round a drop of 
milk for the evening, but he hain't got none 
worth while, and you knows there's none to be 
got here." While she talked she had lifted the 
child out of the clever little cradle, made out 
of half a flour barrel sawed lengthwise, which 
stood on rockers, cleverly made out of the 
heads, near the fire, and which looked more 
homely and comfortable than many a more or- 
nate one I've seen in palaces elsewhere. 

There was a sense of comfort sitting by that 
tidy fireplace added to by Andrew, who was 
laying the table for his wife. And the jingle 
of the tea things and the warmth of the fire 
made one "kind of drowsy." Yet the sense of 
human kinship so strongly stirred one's mind 
to think what I should feel if I were in their 
great dilemma that it caused a sense of sad- 
ness to pervade the little home, which even the 
now rotund and resplendent Santa Claus sit- 
ting in the settle opposite us failed to banish. 
No, Drummond is right; struggle for the life 
of others is a passion more deeply rooted in 
the human heart than that for our own exis- 
tence. 



EVERY LITTLE HELPS 149 

The baby which she had brought over for 
me to examine, and which, poor Httle crea- 
ture, showed no uncertain signs of lack of 
nourishment, was now back in its cradle, and 
Jessie was crooning over it, as she rocked it 
eagerly to and fro to try and soothe its crying 
for that which the claims of wise Mother Na- 
ture had made even it realize in its waking mo- 
ments. 

I sat gazing at the scene, and pondering 
how we could meet the emergency, and my 
eyes rested on the cradle, and slowly it began 
to captivate my attention. How obviously 
new it was. The cut edges of the wood were 
still white from the saw, and yet there was 
a harmony about it that synchronized with the 
surroundings. It was just as one would liked 
to have had it. And after all, what a clever 
cradle it was : The old barrel had been of 
plain cedar, and the cradle was without the 
gaudiness of paint. It had none of the spe- 
cious trappings I have so often resented about 
the cradles of the wealthy. Its plain, uncur- 
tained top collected no dust, and allowed a free 
play of air about the baby's face which pleased 
me greatly. A bright wool blanket, rising 
up above the sides, was all the adornment 
it possessed, or needed. 



ISO DOWN to The SEA 

Cradles! How many I had seen of them, 
yet this was the first of its kind I had ever 
seen, and for utiHty and for dignity, well in 
the first rank of its clan anywhere. And so 
my mind went roaming off to cradles that I 
had seen from London to Land's End, from 
New York to San Francisco. But, no. As my 
spirit on its journey reached New York, it got 
switched off sharply, and there I saw myself 
once again sitting in evening dress in a modern 
palace, among a crowd of the city's wealthiest, 
and once more noticed that I was listening to 
some one telling of babies' food. He was evi- 
dently speaking of what he knew. 

"Baby food," he said, "has almost been per- 
fetched now. You can carry so much in such 
a little space. It should be a great help surely to 
you in the Labrador, Doctor." "What food 
are you referring to?" I could hear myself say. 
"To milk dried on hot drums by the new pro- 
cess. Statistics show it to be better and softer 
for babies than the average cow's milk sup- 
plied in the cities. You certainly should try 
it among your northern people." And again my 
spirit had journeyed on, and now stood gazing 
at a large case on the floor of our city office. 
labelled in large black letters, "Mammala." 



EVERY LITTLE HELPS 151 

Surely this very case was in my store-room 
now. 

"Jessie," I said, so suddenly that had the 
baby been in her lap even she might have 
dropped it. "Jessie," I said, "Andrew will 
come home with me to-night, and in a fort- 
night we will have your baby a match even for 
Santa Claus here. I'm sure of it!" "Thank 
God if you is. Doctor. For us would dearly 
love to keep the baby." 

The Christmas tree seemed to shine doubly 
bright that night, and the many excited shouts 
of the children seemed doubly sweet — all be- 
cause there was just one more chance of suc- 
cess in the struggle for the life of others. 
Andrew came back with me, just to see 
me home; and left next morning early 
with some mysterious long tins safely stowed 
away in the "nonny" bag of sealskin 
that slung over his shoulders. As I saw 
him trudging away on his racquets, and 
felt sure of what such humble things could 
mean to these two lives on this lonely coast, 
I thanked God I was permitted by Him to en- 
joy a lot in life where the value of little things 
is emphasized; and where the sweetest joys on 
earth are in the reach of every man, even if he 
possess but one talent. 



152 DOWN to The SEA 

"Oh, yes, the baby is all right, Doctor. I'm 
going to haul it and Jess over with my dogs 
to show it you one of these days," Andrew 
shouted back to me a little later, as hurrying 
across the country with my trusty team I 
greeted a man whom we passed, working at a 
large load of firewood near the pathway, and 
who turned out to be our good friend with 
the baby. 

Ten weeks later a letter bearing the official 
stamp of the Department of Justice was de- 
livered by our belated mail from a small sail- 
ing boat. The early onset of warm weather 
had made it dangerous for the long series of 
dog teams that ordinarily carry our communi- 
cations to venture with the last batch of letters 
of the winter. The long-hoped-for endorse- 
ment of the judgment had arrived. The baby's 
fate was finally sealed, and its prospects for 
the future fully justified energy voluntarily 
expended, aflfording a satisfaction which is 
considered sufficient remuneration for the am- 
ateur dispensation of justice in these wilds. 



IX. 

Kindly Hearts on Unkindly Shores. 

SUMMER had nearly come to a close on 
the Labrador coast, and the hilltops 
and barrens were flecked with snow. 
In my little mission steamer I had already come 
four hundred miles south from the village on 
the edge of Hudson Bay Straits, which forms 
my turning post every season. I had left the 
sick and injured fishermen whom we had 
picked up on our northern trip in the little hos- 
pital on the group of islands at the mouth of 
Eskimo Bay, which stretches away for one 
hundred and thirty miles into the very heart 
of Labrador, and is the home of many scat- 
tered trappers and salmon fishers. 

At this time of year most of the families 
are gathering towards the trading post, to set- 
tle up with the trader for the summer's catch. 
Whatever is owing to them, after they have 
turned in their salted salmon and codfish, is 

153 



154 DOWN to The SEA 

taken up in food and other necessary supplies 
for the winter. This season has been a very 
hard one. Foxes and other fur-bearing ani- 
mals had been scarce in winter, and few of 
the trappers had done more than pay for their 
advances of last fall. This failure had been 
allowed by a poor salmon fishery in the Bay, 
and to wind up with, a rough, stormy summer 
had not only caused the loss of many large 
schooners outside the Bay in the heavier wa- 
ters of the North Atlantic, but had continued 
so rough that the small boats belonging to the 
baymen had had little chance to retrieve their 
fortunes with the codfish by going to the out- 
side islands in pursuit of them. 

The outlook for the long winter that was 
already looming ahead was gloomy, and I 
found my good friend, the trading agent, in a 
restless mood. "It's all very well being sta- 
tioned here. Doctor," he said, "when there is 
enough to eat, and even a little pinch from the 
wolf won't hurt some of the grown-up men, 
but I tell you it's hard to see the children go- 
ing hungry." "It seems to me," I replied, 
"that it will be more than an ordinary pinch 
some of them will get this time if something 
isn't done, for I met even so good a man as 
Fred Stewart going up to his winter trapping 



KINDLY HEARTS 155 

grounds with not enough to last his big family 
till halfway to Christmas, and he certainly 
won't get much fur before then to help him 
out." 

It so happened that very morning I had been 
standing in the store also while Willie Mal- 
colm had been laying out the meager advance 
allowed him — for he had no balance coming 
to him, and his only assets were his debts. I 
had watched him hesitating between a warm 
pair of socks for the bare legs of his little girl 
"Dollie" and another pound or two of oleo- 
margarine — he hadn't anything like enough 
for winter — and of course there isn't any other 
shop where you can buy anything. 

It just went to my heart even to think of 
that sweet little face being pinched with hun- 
ger (and I'm not her father) — I could not bear 
to see her shivering with cold while I went 
spending money on things I didn't need — be- 
sides, how could you ask God to bless and take 
care of the child and then leave her naked 
while you ate candies. Poor Willie, he had 
kept taking up the stockings and putting them 
down again, and then he would look at the 
open tub of oleo — of course Dollie need not go 
out all winter — she could sit behind, or even 
under the stove, as I have seen other poor 



156 DOWN to The SEA 

children doing. But then his little girl would 
get weak and pale, and no one can tell what 
might happen then, for that is the forerunner 
so often of swellings and running sores and 
of death even — all strange to them, but we 
know to be due to tubercle. 

But then if her father took the stockings he 
couldn't have the oleo, and the winter is so 
long and cold that if they had no fat food they 
might even not live through it all, and anyhow 
he himself would not be fit to hunt properly 
and face the exposures involved. I have 
known Willie Malcolm ever since he brought 
home his young wife, and as his little family 
came along I have been so glad to see the 
plucky fight he has made to keep independent. 
This morning he was so long making up his 
mind the storekeeper went ofif to look after an- 
other settler who had come in to trade. I 
knew quite well Willie wouldn't hesitate a 
minute if it was only a question of a luxury 
for himself and stockings for his little girl, 
because he had recently given up his pipe, the 
one and only companion of his long, lonely 
trails, so that he might throw in the few cents 
he saved by doing so. So I couldn't help feel- 
ing a kind of additional pity for him — indeed, 
I had to look out of the window and rub my 



KINDLY HEARTS 157 

eyes at the sun, or the thick-headed storekeeper 
might have thought I was going to cry. 

Wasn't it just worth living to be able to 
turn round again, when I'd got the dazzle out 
of my eyes, and ask Willie if he'd mind help- 
ing me choose a Christmas present for his "lit- 
tle girl," and when he said he "thought DolHe 
would like a pair of stockings," wasn't it grand 
to have "just enough" money to buy the two 
pairs. "Because you know Dollie would just 
love to have a pair to give Harry." This is 
one of those sermons any one can preach. Ser- 
mons aren't hard things to make, you know, if 
we really do love one another. 

But when the storekeeper said to Willie, 
"You can take the whole of that tub along, 
Willie — I guess some one will pay some day," 
I believe I saw Willie trying to swallow some- 
thing. But somehow I couldn't see very clear- 
ly either just then — people are silly, aren't 
they ? But I think it was better far than buy- 
ing heaps of candies. Don't you? And I 
know I felt as if I could easily walk ten miles 
when I got outside the store. Everybody 
loves preaching that kind of sermons. 

Then again, there was Allan Wolfrey, also 
— with no less than eight children. He had 
been fishing outside the Bay, and he had done 



158 DOWN to The SEA 

fairly well. I had seen his bright little wife 
a week ago, and she had said : "Yes, Doctor, 
us'll have all us needs ;" but then she had add- 
ed, "still, you know. Doctor, there be them as 
has scarcely a bite now, and what' 11 become of 
ours, if they has to come to us to feed 'em as 
well as ours, I don't know. Jerry Deane has had 
to move his house the winter," she had chatted 
on. "He was so close to the winter road they 
fair ate him out o' house and home last winter. 
He's just had to move up the Bay or starve 
this time." This is because in Labrador, of 
course, no one pays anything for hospitality. 
All you do is to say, "Where am I going to 
sleep ?" Then they know you are going to stay 
the night, and of course they say, "Wouldn't 
you like to take a cup o' tea ?" No, I know a 
cup of tea isn't much to give you — ^just bread 
and butter and tea. But when it's all they've 
got, it's wonderful how it satisfies you, because 
they do give it so freely. 

One time I had been staying with some fish- 
ermen for two or three days because a big 
snowstorm had made it impossible for my 
dogs to take me along on our route — I was 
visiting from place to place on a winter round. 
The morning I was to leave I found Tim 
Q'Reilly, my host, had gone on ahead of me. 



'' KINDLY HEARTS 159 

"What made Tim go ahead this morning?" I 
asked his wife. "Well, you know," she said, 
"he thought he would break a path for your 
dogs — 'tis only twenty miles, anyhow, and the 
way's somewhat hard to find, and he thought 
maybe you might miss the road, there being 
no tracks left after the storm. And, indeed, 
he just wanted the fun of a drive. Doctor." 

But I found afterwards that he had carried 
on a tin of condensed milk and some real sugar 
to give to John Samson, whose house he knew 
I was going to stay at, and who had done 
badly with fish. And as I just made him own 
up later, "Well, sure, you know, I didn't want 
John to feel a bit ashamed, and that's all about 
it." 

Well, it did seem a terrible shame. Here 
was Allan's boat alongside the wharf as I 
walked along, and the poor fellow looking as 
if he was in trouble. I called out to his wife, 
who was climbing out of the boat with a bun- 
dle in her arms with baby No. 8 in it. "Good 
day, Susie, I thought you would be away up 
the Bay by now; what's brought you back?" 
"Allan had an accident. Doctor. He upset his 
boat and lost his gun and a lot of things — it 
might have been worse, thank God ! for it was 
very rough, and he was holding onto the bot- 



i6o DOWN to The SEA 

torn o' the boat for nigh an hour before they 
got him. Molly Davis saw the boat upset. 
There were only Allan in it, and she called 
her boys, and they got a boat out and went 
and got him, thank God!" she added, and a 
tear trickled down her cheek. 

Poor Allan ! he hadn't a word to say at first 
when I turned to him for his account of the 
accident. "If it wasn't just the hunting sea- 
son coming. Doctor, it wouldn't matter so 
much," he said at last. "What else did you 
lose beside the gun, Allan?" "Only our win- 
ter fish and some flour," he said. 

In the boat by the wharfside lay all the sup- 
plies they were carrying up the Bay for winter, 
I tried to peep in and see if there was enough 
left, but the seven youngsters left in the boat 
were spread out in old blankets, which so 
tightly closed up the chinks that all I could 
tell was that a good deal more than the gun 
was really gone. 

"Allan's a good hunter," my friend the 
agent told me when I went up to his house to 
take tea. "It means everything to him to lose 
his new gun. It cost him thirty-five dollars 
only two months ago, and he had been saving 
up for years. He wouldn't have spent so much 
on it even then, only he ordered it last year 



KINDLY HEARTS i6i 

when times were better, and of course he had 
to stand by his order. Of course he lost his 
ammunition, too. If he could get a gun 
by hook or crook — if it was only an old muz- 
zle loader — I'd give him ammunition on my 
own account, for Allan's a straight fellow — 
and — I've got a lot of children myself," he 
added, turning away. 

After tea I thought I'd go down to the men's 
cook house and have a talk with the boys. I 
was much pleased to find Allan there cheer- 
fully taking his part with the rest. How our 
folks with such terrible troubles threatening 
can keep so cheery has always been a puzzle to 
me. But Allan seemed to have forgotten tem- 
porarily his great loss. 

It so happened last spring I was callea south 
from the hospital with my dog sledge to visit 
a dying lad some sixty miles to the southeast. 
By some mishap I had fallen through into the 
sea and drifted off many miles on a pan of ice. 
I had been rescued next day, having lost every- 
thing except my life. My friends in America 
had heard of the incident and had sent me 
back more things than I really lost. After a 
little general conversation I edged up along- 
side Allan and asked him how he came to be 
upset. 



1 62 DOWN to The SEA 

"Well," he said, "I was called to go south 
across the Bay to see old Sandy Farlan before 
us left for the winter. He's getting old, you 
know, Doctor, and there's no one to fend for 
him but that little fellow of his. We was all 
ready to start, but Susie wanted me to take 
the old man something towards his winter. 
We was in a hurry to be up the Bay, and 
though it was blowing fresh the wind was fair 
— so I ballasted the small boat down with a 
bit o' fish and some flour for Sandy, and start- 
ed to run across. Well, it got nastier and nas- 
tier as I got over, but of course I couldn't face 
back in the small boat, so I just had to make 
the best of it. As I got near the other side and 
could just make the house out, a steep sea 
broke under the boat's quarter and threw her 
clear over — heels over head. I can't swim a 
yard. Doctor, as you knows, but the Lord let 
me get hold of the gunwale when I came up, 
and I climbed on the bottom and lay flat on the 
keel, gripping the edges of the plank with my 
fingers — she is clinker built, fortunately, and 
I could just hold by the overlapping edges o' 
the planks. Somehow the boat didn't roll over 
with me, though we wallowed along in the 
trough of the seas, every wave making a clean 
break over me — I suppose it must ha' been the 



KINDLY HEARTS 163 

Lord that ruled it for that mast and sail to 
stay in her. I never hoped to be able to hold 
on long enough to drive ashore, for it was ter- 
rible cold, as you know. 

"Yes, I thought a good bit of Susan and 
the young uns, but I wasn't afraid. Was you. 
Doctor, on that icefloe last spring?" he inter- 
rogated. "I suppose all you remember, Allan, 
after that, was being taken off by Molly Da- 
vis's lads." "I don't remember much about 
that at all," he replied. "Well, yes, we did 
take old Sandy a wee bit more on our way up." 

There was a long pause. "Allan," I said, 
"it's a lucky thing it was a gun you lost — why, 
I happen to have a gun right in my cabin." 
"I can't take your gun, Doctor," he said, "you 
will want that yourself." "It's only the loan 
of it, Allan — you can always give it me back. 
I'm going out of the country anyhow this win- 
ter, and / haven't any 'kids' to feed with it." 
There was another long pause and then, 
"Thank you, Doctor" — that was all he was able 
to say, and he found quite a difficulty in get- 
ting that out. But he squeezed my hand till I 
started to whistle, and we went out — to see 
what the evening was like. 

Oh, those sermons! How sweet it is that 
Christ tells us we can all be made fishers of 



1 64 DOWN io The SEA 

men, even if we are not able to make speeches 
or teach in schools! Shan't we ask Him to 
give us all chances and teach us to do what he 
— the Master — would do in our place? 

Allan came up a moment or two later as I 
was trying to make out Aldebaran among the 
magnificently brilliant stars overhead. "Where 
are you off, Allan?" I said. "I thought I'd 
just go around and tell some of them about 
the gun," he answered vaguely. "Well, you 
tell her the agent has something for her in the 
morning, will you, if she hasn't time to go up 
to-night." The agent was smoking on the plat- 
form in front of his house when at last I went 
up to say good night. He just finished up 
that hand Allan had already tried to put out 
of business when we shook hands. "I reckon 
I'll be able to stand to that ammunition O. K. 
when the accounts are settled," he said quietly. 
"Good-night, sleep well, good-night." 



X. 

The Skipper ^s Yarn. 

J 4 "^lT ^'" ^^^^ ^^^ elderly skipper by whose 
I ^ side I was sitting on the cabin lock' 
er, "no, sur, I don't know how us 
did in them days o' schooners at all. You see, 
zur, if us got caught in the floe at all, there 
were nothing for it but to drift about wher- 
ever it liked to take un. If it drove her agin 
the land, or the standing ice, it was little 
chance enough there was for her. Why, zur, 
you minds well the year Skipper Blake lost 
his steamer less'n twenty-four hours out from 
his own home. It were all done in five min- 
utes, zur. She were driven back by a huge 
pan more'n a mile long, which went rafting 
along over the standing edge. T' mate tried 
to pop her into a kind o' bite there were in the 
edge, and had nearly got round the point, when 
t' ole man comes on deck. The water seemed 
somehow sort er clear to the sou'east, so the 
165 



1 66 DOWN to The SEA 

skipper he twists 'er round and puts 'er at it. 
Well, zur, it seemed as if it were for to be. 
For the big pan just caught her, and pinned 
'er like a rat in a trap — us could hear her ribs 
a-crackin' like nuts, and the deck beams come 
up just like a arch, and biist, and you could 
'a' fallen through the seams. We tried pump- 
ing, but bless you! it weren't no good. So us 
landed the canvas and t' grub on the ice be- 
fore it slacken again about twelve hours after. 
Then she just throwed up her head and goes 
down starn first, and we was left a-looking 
for her. Thank God, it weren't far from 
land, and every man got ashore." 

There was a pause, and then he added sen- 
tentiously, as he sucked his pipe, "If t' ole man 
had only stayed below five minute to take a 
cup o' tea, I thinks it wouldn't 'a' happened at 
all. 

"It was in the year o' Green Bay," he went 
on, "when the winds hung so long in t' nor'- 
east, and so many vessels was lost — I was in 
the Hesperus wi' my boys. We was drove in 
by the pack along wi' the rest of 'em. But 
the old Hesperus was one to rise easy, and 
when the ice started rafting, it just lifted her 
up, zur — like a baby, zur — and left her lying- 
there. It carried away her port stanchions, an' 



The SKIPPER'S YARN 167 

about thirty foot o' rails an' bulwarks. But, 
bless you! beyond that she weren't even so 
much as scratched. Eight o' the men were 
that scairt they went an' left her, but my boys, 
they stood by me, zur, they did ! Us started in 
to get some food an' canvas off of her, in case 
her might fall in t' wrong way; and there we 
bides till the wind showed signs o' slacking. 
Well, then, zur, us gets all the powder us had, 
and blasted away at them pans to try and let 
her keel down easy. But ne'er a bit would 
she budge, till there were only a twelve-pound 
keg o' powder left, and not a single inch of 
fuse. There were nothing to be done but put 
it right under her — so us sewed the stabber 
round wi' tarry spun-yarn, and worked a bit 
o' powder in wi' it, and then we just lets her 
rip. Well — zur — if you'd seed that old ship 
get up on end and look at us that solemn like, 
zur, you'd a laughed till you cried, as all o' 
us done. What did us do then? Why, we all 
gets aboard — stows her grub an' stuff down 
below again. An' us got twenty-one hundred 
seals afore us wet an anchor or saw home 
again. 

"The closest call I's had, it is you wants, is 
it? Well, zur, I thinks it were one time I was 
out in that same old Hesperus, We was away 



1 68 DOWN to The SEA 

off the Funk Islands, and the swiles was away 
again to the nor'ard; at least so it seemed to 
us. But the wind held to the nor'ard day after 
day, and we was losing ground that fast in the 
running ice that there was nothing for it but 
to hitch her on to a iceberg. 

"There was one about sixty feet or more 
high as we was driving by, and there were two 
grand pinnacles on it. So a dozen of us land- 
ed on the floe, and got alongside as best us 
could. Wi' our axes we cut steps up the side 
of un, till us got safely on 'is shoulder, and 
then passes our bight line round one pinnacle, 
an' hauls the big hawser home, and made fast. 
Meanwhile the ice has been wheeling pretty 
fast wi' the breeze, and all of a suddent the 
berg got clear and was floating in open water. 
There was a heavy swell running, and as soon 
as ever she shook free, down she started to go. 
Our schooner were away to leeward the whole 
length o' the line, and there were ne'er a boat 
afloat. Well, zur, t' berg went down that slow 
and that steady, us didn't notice it till us was 
almost down to the water, so that I had hardly 
time to sing out, 'Hang on the line, boys!' 
when the first sea broke right over us. Only 
one man had let go, and, luckily enough for 
him, the sea jammed him in against a sharp 



The SKIPPER'S YARN 169 

ledge of ice wi' the hawser taut against his 
legs. She didn't stay down a minute, how- 
ever; indeed, she must ha' gone level wi' the 
surface, I supposes, and then up she starts to 
come again, just as she went down, that sol- 
emn and that slow, as if the whole world be- 
longed to her. When we had found out where 
we was again, we were well up in the air and 
a boat was pulling towards us for all she was 
worth. One o' our fellows somehow got 
frightened, and when we was good sixty feet 
up again, he rushes to t' edge shoutin', 'My 
God, I ain't goin' to stay on this thing no 
longer!' And, zur, youse mayn't believe me, 
but if I hadn't 'a' catched him by the collar, 
jump he would have, sure enough. No one 
else said nothing, 'cept Old Uncle Pete, and 
he just said in his slow old way, 'It don't seem 
as if us is going to be lost this time after all, 
do it, skipper?' He said it that droll I had to 
stop and laugh in spite o' having to tie the 
small line to the hawser and let all hands swing 
into the boat. We was soaked through, and 
cold, too, and there weren't no time to waste 
anyhow — leastways it seem' so — for the ole 
berg were on 'er way down again ahead. As 
it were, howsomever, the hawser held on to the 
pinnacles, and us had just time to get clear 



1 70 DOWN to The SEA 

before another sea broke over her. Yes, o' 
course she might ha' tipped over ; many on 'em 
does, as you says, but then you see she didn't, 
^nd that's all about it. Well, o' course, when 
the loose ice wheeled back, it steadied her up 
again, and us held on just as long as us wanted. 
No, I didn't care about goin' up on her again 
to let go. But what o' that ?" 

The inquiry into unnecessary details seemed 
to worry the old fellow, so I quietly passed 
him my tobacco-pouch and went up to look 
at the weather, while he pulled himself to- 
gether for another yarn. 



XI. 

** There His Servants Serve Eim.** 

THE winter's Ice is breaking up, and 
spring in the sub-arctic is commen- 
cing. In the phraseology of my blue- 
guernseyed friends, I am "bound for the Lab- 
rador," whither they are also making their 
way in thousands in their annual endeavor 
to reap the rich harvest of the sea, which for 
a hundred years that apparently barren coast 
has yielded to their skill and courage. 

Already most of their adventurous barks are 
"down north," picking their somewhat hazard- 
ous paths through the pack-ice, which this year 
has lain terribly late along the Atlantic sea- 
board of this grim continent. 

The last land our vessel touched at was Syd- 
ney in Cape Breton, where we put in to es- 
cape a thick fog in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 

The weather had been moderate till near 
sundown, but then a steadily rising wind had 
171 



172 DOWN to The SEA 

given most of us a very broken night. For 
the rough water caused by the strong current 
going south against the breeze had rolled up a 
nasty sea, and incidentally rolled us so un- 
generously that sleep under the conditions, 
when one had come straight from a long pe- 
riod among "the landlubbers," was in our 
small vessel out of the question. 

Moreover, we needed fresh water, one of 
those few commodities that these cliffs and 
valleys supply freely and without stint; so the 
master had decided to run into a harbor as 
soon as the sea and the darkness should make 
an approach to the land possible. 

Now it is Sunday morning, and the rattle 
of the anchor-chain in the hawse-pipe had 
scarcely died away. The surface of the har- 
bor is as placid as a duck-pond, being shel- 
tered from the stormy breeze that is blowing 
outside by mighty, overhanging hills, exquis- 
itely covered with dark green evergreen spruces 
and pines. 

Along the partly cleared foreshore peep out 
the scattered houses of a little hamlet, and as 
yet, except for the smoke rising from a single 
chimney, no signs of life are visible. 

The morning sun has risen above the high 
peaks of a mountain range some half-dozen 



His SERVANTS SERVE HIM 173 

miles inland, and the long rays streaming- 
through the gaps in the sides of the winding 
fiord are striking here and there the mirror of 
the smooth water, and, repeated thence, are 
dancing like sprites on the cliff faces of the 
opposite side of the inlet. Our own vessel is 
swathed in sunshine from above and below as 
she lies lazily lolling on the azure water of this 
northern sea. 

It has been my lot for many years to be 
trying to solve the problem of how best to con- 
tend with sickness and suffering along this 
long coast-line. Here the distances between 
the homes of the settlers, and their inability to 
pay large fees, render impossible the methods 
that obtain in large communities, with the re- 
sult that for hundreds of miles no medical or 
skilled assistance of any kind is available in 
times of trouble. Thus a vague terror of 
things unknown hovers over these little fam- 
ilies, and a wake of lives and capacities need- 
lessly lost ever lies behind them. 

" 'Tis a. powerful healthy coast, Doctor," an 
optimistic skipper said to me the other day, — 
while his own daughter of eighteen lay dying 
of tuberculosis in his parlor, owing mainly to 
their lamentable lack of knowledge of the very 
first rudiments of sanitary science. 



174 DOWN to The SEA 

Years of experience have taught me that it 
requires service in varied forms to relieve 
troubles which are so patiently and uncom- 
plainingly borne that the very fatalism that is 
the outcome makes it almost impossible to in- 
troduce what seem to be "newfangled" meth- 
ods. It is, with but little knowledge, possible 
to do much with the remedies nature furnishes 
on the spot. 

"Doctor, I wants you to look at my Johnny," 
said a young mother this morning. "His legs 
be all snarled up." 

It was only an ordinary case of rickets, but 
unnecessary, for the remedy was right at hand. 

"Take some of those light bluish stones off 
the beach and burn them thoroughly; then 
throw some hot water on them. Get the white 
powder and put a lot of it in a jug. Shake it 
up well, and let it settle. Pour off the clear 
water, and give Johnny a tablespoonful three 
times a day." 

"Can you'se come to see my 'ooman, Doc- 
tor?" said the father of a family to me a little 
while ago, soon after we had come to an 
anchor. "She be terrible bad, and be turning 
black all over." 

A short walk through a grove of spruce 
trees along a beach abounding in wild parsley, 



His SERVANTS SERVE HIM 175 

and across a greensward yellow with dande- 
lions, brought us to a tiny log house. Here 
lay the mother of a young family, the fetid 
bleeding mouth, the swollen black patches, and 
the painful, discolored legs proclaiming it to 
be a case of sailors' scurvey. She was suffer- 
ing untold agonies, while strewn all the way 
from the landing-place to the very house door 
lay the only remedies needed. 

The white plague, however, which works so 
secretly that our people have never yet recog- 
nized its malignity, exacts the most appalling 
tribute from us. Sitting here in the sunshine 
on an old sea-chest is a boy of fifteen. His 
pallid and sunken cheeks, and his occasional 
hollow cough, proclaim their own story. We 
have just dragged him out of a dark cabin of 
wood and mud, where no window opened, 
where the door closed almost air-tight, where 
there is no open chimney, but only a large 
stove with an iron smoke-funnel, and where 
this boy lay weighted down with all the heavy 
garments the efforts of misdirected love could 
pile upon him. 

Scenes so harrowing and homes so saddened 
"just for the want of a little knowledge" have 
not been without their effect on our policy. 

Indeed, right here in this tiny village off 



176 DOWN to The SEA 

which we have so incontinently come to 
anchor, somewhere among these scattered cot- 
tages is working at this very moment a trained 
nurse for the first time in history. Hither she 
has come in response to our appeal for help. 
She has come at her own private cost and 
charges all the long distance between this place 
and New York, — just to spend the six months 
of summer, trying, for the great Master's sake, 
to "do what she can" for these His brethren. 
The skill acquired so patiently and at such cost 
at a large New York hospital is not the least 
of her contributions. 

From letters she has already sent me, I most 
shrewdly guess that the solitary column of as- 
cending smoke marks a*cottage where she is 
tending some sick child, or possibly one of 
those so common cases where just the loving, 
skilful service she alone in this place is able 
to render may now be standing the only barrier 
betwixt life and death. 

As my eye wanders around the shore I can 
distinguish here the cross-surmounted spire of 
a Catholic church, and close to it the little 
home of the missionary priest. Further away 
to the side I can see a building which in spite 
of its rude architecture I can readily distin- 
guish as an Episcopal church, while away to- 



His SERVANTS SERVE HIM 177 

ward the rocky headland which we rounded as 
we came in is obviously the building in which 
the Methodists of this scattered district gather 
for divine worship. 

These buildings demand the services of at 
least three men's lives, — men no doubt de- 
voted, earnest, and unselfish. For the material 
return that a minister of the gospel can ex- 
pect for the services he is called on to render 
must yet be meagre, down here, in compari- 
son with that which a commercial life could 
return to him. 

These more pretentious houses with real 
bow windows and bravely ornamented porches 
are not the residences that the men who serve 
the churches can expect, but are undoubtedly 
the homes of the owners of these trading 
wharves I see projecting into the harbor. The 
minister of religion can expect, along this 
coast, at least, so far to share the measure 
meted out to the Master. If he seeks here for 
the joys of life in a coin different from that 
which the Christ found His in, he is doomed 
only to disappointment. 

On the other hand, to these men belongs the 
high privilege of speaking for their Master. 
They can gather crowds around them, and can 
expect to enjoy the real reward of service in 



178 DOWN to The SEA 

seeing many men listen to their spoken mes- 
sage and answer to it in their lives. To many 
there seems a special dignity at first in this 
form of service, — a special value to life that 
the man of commerce, the man with the hook 
and line, the nurse with her bag of comforts 
and only her own two hands, have no right to 
expect to realize so fully. 

It is evening now, and the sun is setting. 1 
have been ashore all day, following the trip- 
ping footsteps of the nurse as she wended her 
way now over the hills from house to house, 
now independently paddling in her own canoe 
from point to point in the inlet, much to the 
anxiety of these men of the sea, who "be un- 
acquainted with the like." 

I have been following her at her own re- 
quest, that she might obtain some advice, some 
help, some encouragement, for "her family," 
— a family so very dependent on her efforts. 
Indeed, as she waved me good-bye this even- 
ing as I left the shore for my ship, she assured 
me that even she herself was glad of the en- 
couragement. For alas! it is true, nineteen 
hundred years later, that the bearer of the 
message of God's love, and the carrying of the 
Christ into men's homes, however undeniable 
be the form of service that we would commend 



His SERVANTS SERVE HIM 179 

Him by, still find their detractors; and ever 
the good of "those who do good" causes the 
tongue of the unprofitable to wag in malice, 
with a view to discredit and discourage the ef- 
fort of any who would interpret love by work. 

First among our visits to-day was one to a 
woman with a huge swelling, which proved to 
be a tumor needing immediate removal. Next 
came a young girl with intermittent appendi- 
citis, who should be at once operated on. This 
mother, too, lying here in bed so patiently, 
should, with but trifling medical skill, be able 
to go about her household duties again. This 
young fisherman and father, incapacitated by 
an injury caused by a heavy strain at his work, 
could be so easily made a new man. Here is 
a woman crippled for years by a loose body 
in her knee-joint, an injury comparatively 
quite simple to repair, yet one which makes 
"getting about" both a misery and danger. 

As we passed along, word evidently kept 
travelling ahead of us that we were on our 
rounds. For nearly every little door or gar- 
den-gate was ajar; and as we came by a shy 
invitation, "just to come in a minute" and see 
some member of the household, kept us so long 
at work that the evening services at the 
churches were over long ere we reached the 



i8o DOWN to The SEA 

side of the fiord we had left in the morning', 
where our ship lay, and where the little 
churches stood. 

As I bade good-night to my indefatigable 
companion, I said, "You must be tired to 
death, nurse." 

"Not a bit," she replied; "I'm just as fresh 
as paint still." 

"Well, be sure to catch the next mail 
steamer bound for the hospital at Battle Har- 
bor, and bring with you at least those five out 
of your little family." Odd as it may seem, I 
believed firmly that the message of love would 
come to them, at any rate, most truly through 
the surgeon's knife. 

And now it is time to "turn in." The ship 
is already silent; there is no need to keep an 
anchor-watch, and all hands are sleeping but 
myself. On shore also once again I can make 
out no signs of the stir of human life. The 
last twinkling light in a cottage window has 
just gone out. 

But I am still lingering under God's beauti- 
ful curtain overhead, watching the brilliant 
worlds above peeping through at us below; 
and my mind goes a-wandering, as it were, 
'twixt the practicalities of the brief day of hu- 
man life and the eternity that surrounds it. 



His SERVANTS SERVE HIM i8i 

How infinitely small seems our utmost oppor- 
tunity for making our poor life worth while! 
And yet there is in my heart, and in every 
right-thinking child of man's, the confidence 
that we, departing, can "leave behind us foot- 
prints on the sands of time" that we should not 
be ashamed of. 

The events of the day just gone forever 
once more repeat themselves in my memory; 
and there is a longing now that He who made, 
and rules on high, all this great universe, and 
whose eye is now upon me as, alone on this 
deck, I look up into His heavens — a longing 
that He may find something among all the 
things we have considered worth while at the 
time — something — that He can commend. 

What would I commend? Which is the 
"service" that seems undeniable, — a worthy 
service for the King of kings ? 

Possibly we grade wrongly what "service" 
means, and, in giving to the various forms of 
worship the term of "service," have lost sight 
of the fact that in singing and praying and 
talking, or in correct intellectual assent merely, 
we are conferring no favor on the King. 
Rather are we at these times merely coming 
near to Him, that He may confer on us fresh 
favors of His courage. His wisdom, and His 



i82 DOWN to The SEA 

strength ; that we may go out to render better 
the real service He calls for, 

I was glad that He had given me time to 
join the others in their simple form of wor- 
ship when the day began ; but I saw no reason 
to regret — though selfishly I would have liked 
it otherwise — that the humble services to His 
brethren, such as with the nurse I had been 
rendering, had prevented me from again join- 
ing the congregation in their evening hymns 
of faith and praise. 

For there sang in my heart a voiceless hymn 
that shall echo on when the strains of the 
service rendered by voice only shall have died 
away, — a very song of heaven that once sang 
even on His cross in our Master's heart, such 
a hymn as I know must sing, even at the dark- 
est hours, in the hearts of all those whom He 
blesses with the faith that in serving our 
brethren we render the highest service we are 
capable of rendering, with our poor talents, to 
Him. 



XII. 

A Physician In the Arctic. 

A GREAT good fortune it is to live 
among deep sea fishermen on this or 
the other side of the Atlantic. Splen- 
did material they are, none better. Their 
simple, hard lives and their constant business 
on great waters develop all that is good and 
virile in them, and indeed, who ever knew a 
mean deep sea man? Their self-reliance and 
simple courage are sermons needing no words. 
Their many deeds of self-sacrificing bravery 
are still done where there can be no doubt 
about the motive, for they neither expect nor 
receive reward in gold and silver, or in the 
praise of men. 

The constant perils and great hardships of 
their lives and the lives of the fisher folk along 
the coast are brought home to us every year 
by new tales of suffering and bravery. The 
experience of one fisherman we knew is typical 

183 



1 84 DOWN to The SEA 

of what happens only too frequently in that 
country. This man, wishing to go South for 
the winter, started in his small fishing boat, 
with his wife, four children, a servant girl 
and his fishing partner. Scarcely had they 
left when a furious gale of wind sprang up. 
The mainsail and jib, with the mast, were all 
blown over the side, and the boat was driven 
before the wind. Three days and three nights 
they drove off into the Atlantic. On the third 
day the wind veered, and they were able to 
put up a small foresail they had saved and 
drag in the direction of the land. Two more 
terrible days, and at last, when the boat was 
quite unmanageable, they found the land close 
under their lee. Their condition was seen 
just before they drove ashore and a rescue at- 
tempted, but too late to save their boat. All 
their lives, however, were saved by the in- 
domitable perseverance of the half dozen set- 
tlers. Instead of being south of where they 
left, they were a hundred and fifty miles 
north, and indeed were in Labrador. There 
was no chance to leave so late in the season, 
and there they had to stay till the following 
summer, fed by the kindness of their poor 
neighbors and dead to all their friends for at 
least six months. A similar accident to one of 




THE PHYSICIAN IN THE LABRADOR 



A PHYSICIAN in The ARCTIC 185 

our English fishing vessels left the crew of 
ten men on the south coast of Iceland all one 
winter. When they came back in the fol- 
lowing spring by the first possible boat, not 
only had the insurance on all their lives been 
paid and mostly spent, but one man's wife 
had married again. 

Gales in these regions in winter are often 
terribly severe. The little new church built 
here where I am wintering now was a few 
years ago blown clean away. Even the pews, 
the pulpit and the communion table were all 
blown into the sea. 

Few fishermen can swim. "You see we has 
enough o' the water without goin' to bother 
wi' it when we are ashore," a man said to me 
only the other day. Yet this very man had 
fallen overboard in the open sea no less than 
four times, and had only been saved on one 
occasion by catching the line thrown him in 
his teeth and holding on till he was hauled 
aboard. His hands were too numbed to be 
of any use. Still this fact does not deter them 
from facing the water. In an open bay in 
Labrador lives one solitary settler. In the 
spring of the year, when the ice was just 
breaking up, the man's two lads were out on 
the bay ice after seals, when all of a. sudden it 



1 86 DOWN to The SEA 

gave way and the lads fell through. The 
father, seeing it from the shore, did not hesi- 
tate, but seizing a fishing line hastily fastened 
one end round his body, and giving the other 
end to his daughter to hold, he ran out to the 
hole through which they had fallen. He 
jumped into the water, actually went down 
and fetched up the bodies, too late, alas, how- 
ever, to restore life to them after that cold 
water. These tales could be multiplied in- 
definitely. And there are many heroic tales 
of women. Early in the fall the arm of the 
sea just north of our little hospital was frozen 
over enough to allow dog trains to travel over 
it. In the early morning two men started off 
to cross it on a komatik, to cut firewood on 
the far side. As they rounded a headland the 
whole of the team fell in through the ice, 
where an eddying tide had kept it open. The 
komatik followed into the water, carrying the 
men with it. One disappeared under the ice 
and was drowned. The other got free and 
held on to the ice edge, though he was unable 
to crawl out on top of it. From the shore 
his sister saw the accident and at once started 
to run over the ice to his aid. As she drew 
near she heard men shouting, and saw they 
were pulling a boat down to the ice some dist- 



A PHYSICIAN in The ARCTIC 187 

ance away. They shouted to her, "For God's 
sake, don't go near the hole." Instead of stop- 
ping she had the presence of mind to throw 
herself full length on the ice and glide along 
till she got near enough with outstretched arms 
to reach her brother's hand. Already he was 
half frozen to death. But she managed to 
get him up enough to rest on the ice near her, 
and then to lie perfectly still till the boat came, 
when she was at length taken off. One of 
her own legs was through the ice. The tough, 
salt water ice fortunately does not split as the 
brittle, fresh water ice does. Her brother's 
life was saved, and there the incident ended. 

"What made you go on ?" I asked her. 

"I couldn't see him drown, could I?" was 
her simple reply. 

Besides sailors and the Eskimos, my clien- 
tele includes some four to five thousand white 
settlers, scattered all along the coast of Lab- 
rador from Cape Chidley to the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence, and along the north shores of New- 
foundland. They are a most heterogeneous 
class, drafted from almost everywhere and 
descended from Scotch, south of England, 
and French parentage. They have become 
fishermen and trappers and live under circum- 
stances as adverse as it is possible to conceive 



1 88 DOWN to The SEA 

of, quite cut off from civilization. In many 
respects they may be said to bear the flavor 
of prehistoric times and this often affects my 
practice in curious ways. They have a firm 
belief in the healing power of charms, the 
efficacy of which of course lies in faith. 

The call for education in matters sanitary 
was emphasized at one house I visited. The 
man had lost from tuberculosis three daughters, 
two of them married, in thirteen months, his 
eldest son was badly affected, and another 
house had every child rickety. This, of 
course, is far more emphasized in the case of 
animals. I found one poor fellow in sore 
trouble over his sick cow. He had already, 
with a long gimlet, bored holes into its head 
through to the root of its horns, as he was told 
it was " horn-bound," by much the same rea- 
soning process that some of our people attrib- 
ute the squalling of their babies to being 
" tongue-tied." The animal, however, had not 
improved, and I was called in, though I real- 
ized at once my limitations in the " cow-doctor 
line." The poor beast seemed feverish and too 
weak to stand, and eventually died. 

Late one evening a fisherman came off to 
our vessel, a shy sort of fellow. He had tied 
his boat and seated himself on the taffrail 



A PHYSICIAN in The ARCTIC 189 

where he had apparently been waiting a full 
hour or more before I happened to go up on 
deck to see what kind of a night it was and 
stumbled against him. 

"Are you the doctor, sir?" he asked. "I 
want bleeding, please sir." To ease his mind 
I called him below to examine him. Finding, 
however, it was only a case of impure blood 
without any symptoms and having no patience 
to spend time on nihilitis, I dismissed him 
unbled and turned in. 

At daylight, when we rose to get under way, 
he was on board again, very dejected and com- 
ing up to me offered me a dollar to bleed him. 
A dollar cash on this coast is a thing a man 
so seldom gets he never parts with it if he 
can help it. Evidently it was best to bleed 
him for his mind's sake. So I did it. "You 
see, sir," he said, while the operation was go- 
ing on, "an old Indian squaw, she bleed my 
feet a good spell ago and I haven't had ne'er 
a pain since. So when they told me there was 
a doctor aboard, I thought it was a good 
chance." But he added half regretfully, "it 
didn't feel quite the same. She bored the 
holes with a kind o' corkscrew." 

The most satisfactory part of our work 
perhaps, is the ability to save by simple sur- 



ii9Q ^DOWN to The SEA 

gical means the loss of functions that stand 
for the difference between a wretched existence 
and a life of comparative enjoyment, and be- 
tween plenty and want. Even a failure does 
not distress us as it would in a city, for we 
are at least the best surgeons here and there is 
no other man round the corner who would 
have done the thing much better. We took in 
once a patient, stone blind for two years, who 
had long since abandoned all hope of being 
able to see again. He was only a little over 
forty years old and the prospect on a coast 
like this was dreary indeed. The operation 
for double cataract was completely successful 
and was quite as miraculous to the neighbors 
as the restoring of sight to the blind in Our 
Saviour's time. 

One of the main difficulties in operative 
work is often the soft-heartedness of my as- 
sistants, who are necessarily pressed in from 
anywhere, and the anxiety of watching both 
the anaesthetic and the operation. This does 
not matter so much when dealing with Eskimo 
patients, for they are sometimes so indifferent 
to pain one can dispense with the anaesthetics, 
and now excellent local anaesthetics often act- 
ually permit the patients themselves to help 
one in the operation. On one occasion, when 



'A PHYSICIAN in The ARCTIC 191 

I was visiting an Eskimo fishing station, the 
head man announced that I would see the 
patients in his hut. I seated myself in the 
middle of the tiny hut with a butter tub for 
a throne, while every inch of spare room 
around the tiny space reserved for the patient 
of the moment was crowded with all the adult 
Eskimos that could get in. Curiosity is as 
marked in these little people as it is in mon- 
keys. It came at last to the turn of a girl 
with an intractable frost bite of the toe, for 
which the only cure was amputation. Appar- 
ently it was a proud moment in her life. Hav- 
ing explained as best I could the treatment 
her case involved, I was not a little surprised 
when she sat right down and held up the toe 
which gave her a claim to so much attention, 
indicating that she wished me to proceed at 
once. She showed the greatest interest from 
start to finish and I left her a marked person 
in that settlement. Eskimos almost always 
heal well. No one wishes to earn the title of 
romancer, yet I have been so surprised myself 
at the way people can get well on this coast 
that I am inclined to advise my readers to 
come down here and try its tonic qualities. 

Ritual of all kind is at a discount among 
those who go down to the sea in ships, and 



192 DOWN to The SEA 

I am afraid that in surgery as well as in re- 
ligion we are apt to be iconoclasts. Late one 
fall when I was hastening south in a small 
launch — the hospital sailing vessel in which 
we came from England had already gone, — I 
anchored at dark one day under the shelter of 
a group of islands in a roadstead quaintly 
named "Rogue's Roost." Just as I was turn- 
ing in, for being my own skipper with only 
one man beside the engineer I had a watch 
to stand and was therefore tired, a boat 
bumped alongside and a voice sang out to 
know if there was a doctor on board, 
• "What do you want with a doctor ?" 

"There's a woman very sick ashore, sir. 
Could you come and see her?" 

How could I say that I wasn't at home, see- 
ing he had guessed my identity from my voice. 
I went ashore and found the mother of a 
small family actually sick unto death. She 
had what is known as a psoas abscess. In 
this case the treatment involved an opening 
through the muscles in the back. To me it 
seemed an issue in either case of death, the 
difference being the lessening of her sufferings. 
She insisted on taking the chance and endur- 
ing the pain. My only assets were a scalpel 
and the rubber tube of my stethescope. The 



'A PHYSICIAN in The ARCTIC 193 

operation went off all right. The tube was 
strongly sewn in and the bed having been lit- 
erally cut in half, drainage was established and 
the person directed to lie on her back there 
until I came back in the spring. I was a little 
shy when next July we approached this same 
group of islands. But among those who came 
down to greet me was an unusually healthy 
looking woman whom I entirely failed to rec- 
ognize. At last I ventured to approach the 
painful subject of the operation. The person 
in rude health explained without any surprise, 
"that's me." 

Being unable to specialize on this coast, one 
has perhaps as many medical troubles as one 
has surgical. On one occasion I brought with 
me from the north a jolly little fellow who 
had been exhibited at the World's Fair as 
Prince Pomiuk. I had picked him up in an 
advanced state of hip-joint disease, lying 
naked on the pebble beach in a skin "tubik" 
or tent at the head of a deep fjord near Cape 
Chidley. The foster parents, for his father, 
the chief, had been murdered, readily gave 
me what remained of the lad, and having 
twice operated on him under chloroform, I 
had landed him at our mo»t northern hos- 
pital at the mouth of Hamilton inlet. The 



194 DOWN to The SEA 

sister in charge was ordered to keep him for 
a few days in a hot bath. We had no hot 
water supply, however, and the stove was only 
large enough to keep hot the food and water 
that was wanted for every day's work. The 
question was solved by our fishermen friends 
around. They appeared in the afternoon with 
a large iron pot in which they bark their nets. 
Under the shelter of a virgin rock they built a 
stone fire place, on which they not only placed 
the cauldron, but there in the open near the 
hospital kept the fire going the requisite time 
and did a great deal towards hastening the 
little fellow's recovery. The bath, holding a 
large quantity of water, and being well 
wrapped round with layers of blankets was 
not hard to maintain at an even temperature. 

A flag half-masted or almost any unusual 
evolution answers as a call to our little hospital 
ship as she patrols the coast in summer. One 
morning, just as we had got our anchor up 
and were ready for sea, we saw signals from 
an approaching boat that they wanted to come 
aboard. No sooner alongside than a man was 
lifted over the rail with his right arm under 
cover. It appeared that owing to an accident 
it had been dislocated some weeks previously, 
and was not only the cause of great pain but 



A PHYSICIAN in The ARCTIC 195 

threatened to permanently cripple him. As 
we were then almost at our most extreme 
northern limit, and in the latitude that no 
medical man reaches, it was doubly pleasing 
to stop and put the poor fellow right, though 
we were blowing off steam and wasting pre- 
cious fuel all the time. I had supposed that 
the incident ended there, but two years later, 
being again in the same neighborhood, my 
former patient came aboard tendering me a 
splendid pair of skin boots. Having forgotten 
the man I asked him what he wanted for them. 
"For you," he replied, and promptly retired. 
I was only told on inquiry that he had been 
waiting all this time to demonstrate in some 
way that he was not without gratitude. Grati- 
tude, as rare still in the world as in Scrip- 
tural times, goes a long way to render even 
arduous services a pleasure, and fortunately 
this is a characteristic feature also in men of 
the sea. 

A letter from an Eskimo bears the same 
note. "My dear friend. You are our friend, 
although you do not know us. We show you 
our thanks, both my wife and I, because you 
have so kindly attended our children this sum- 
mer. First you cared for Jeremias, while he 
was suffering. He is his mother's only son. 



196 DOWN to The SEA 

Afterwards my only son Nathaniel, the one 
that was shot, you are attending to, and we 
wish to show you our thanks. Although we 
are unable to pay with things that are seen, 
may He on whom you believe help you in 
your work, and may you afterwards receive 
that for which you wish, that which is precious 
and desirable, that which is above. Jeremias 
told us of your kindness which you show to 
all. Please accept this little present, which is 
to show you our thanks. We are unable to 
do more. Good-bye." How could it have been 
better worded? 

The pitiable straits to which one or two bad 
seasons sometimes reduces these families, es- 
pecially the more isolated ones, is the side of the 
picture that is perhaps most pathetic. I went 
one day up a bay, to visit a settler's family. 
It was dark when we arrived and hauled our 
boat up near the house. The father and one 
boy were away. The mother and seven others 
were home. The youngest was four months 
old. The house consisted of one large room, a 
central cracked stove, and a porch in which 
the inevitable dogs slept. 

Our hostess remarked at once : "I am very 
sorry, sir, I cannot offer you any tea. We 
have had none in the house for over a month. 



A PHYSICIAN in The ARCTIC 197 

Richard is away selling some seals." They 
had for their summer twelve quintals of fish 
at two dollars thirty a quintal, two bear skins, 
and six seals. The "seven" were to all in- 
tents and purposes naked. Two threadbare 
cotton coverlets were the sole furnishings of 
the two beds. The semi-religious light of an 
exceedingly small lamp in some measure ob- 
scured the rest of the meager surroundings. 
"Soft loaf and water" had been their supper 
for many a day. Not even a drop of molasses 
was in the house. Two children slept with 
the mother, four on the other bed, two on the 
floor. Where the other two stowed away was 
a mystery. All turned in with even their rem- 
nants of boots on. We wrapped up in our 
blankets and slept on the floor. 

*T don't see the blanket I sent you last 
fall," I ventured on as we were stowing away. 
"Did you receive it?" 

"Yes, sir. But five children sleeping under 
it soon wore it out." 

The enforced idleness of winter is one of 
the greatest causes of this extreme poverty. 
To counteract this we have several efforts 
under way. To help them to get cash for their 
produce we started a series of small co-opera- 
tive stores, where the fish is sold to the people 



198 DOWN to The SEA 

tor cash, and where they can get goods at 
cash prices. These stores have now a large 
schooner for freighting called the Co-operator. 
They have had quite a measure of success. 
To increase as far as we can the wage-earn- 
ing capacity we have several small schemes, 
the best being a lumber mill, on which sixty- 
five families were supported last winter quite 
independently. Those who are good trappers 
can make plenty by catching foxes, otters, 
beaver, marten, minks, lynx, ermine and mus- 
quash. Deer also are still plentiful in most 
parts of the country, and of late years rabbits. 
Ducks also are common all along the coast, 
and there are some geese and other wild fowl. 
We also get bears, both black and white, and 
some years great quantities of willow grouse 
and some ptarmigan, spruce partridge and 
Arctic hares. The dog driving, ski traveling, 
skating and winter pleasures are unrivaled. 
There is plenty of free salmon fishing, and 
unlimited trout fishing. Cruising can be car- 
ried on in perfect safety, and one can cover 
hundreds of miles without ever seeing the open 
water at all, as the outlying islands are so 
numerous. There is much exploration to be 
done, much ethnological work, to say nothing 
of prospecting. The fog is not at all trouble- 



A PHYSICIAN in The ARCTIC 199 

some, the air is clear and bracing. Practically 
the only trouble is the mosquito, and he never 
confers ague on his victims. 

The absence of all conventionalities and re- 
strictions is also very refreshing. A peri- 
patetic minister was called on at a place known 
as Spotted Islands to marry a couple. The 
bridegroom was an elderly man who was a 
kind of king in the place. When the minister 
arrived at the island he found all the islanders 
assembled in the little school-room awaiting 
him. It was not till he actually entered the 
building that he discovered the bride was the 
deceased wife's sister. This being a forbidden 
relationship, he refused to proceed, whereupon 
the intending bridegroom quietly remarked, 
"Never mind, Mister. One of these others 
v,nll do." So, turning to the expectant crowd, 
he selected a suitable partner, and she being 
willing, "all went as gaily as a marriage bell." 

All our winter work is done over the snow 
with large dog teams and komatiks or sledges. 
One old lady of sixty has just arrived at one 
of the hospitals, after being hauled nearly 
seventy miles by her two lads and their dog 
team. She came to have her leg amputated, 
and already we are trying to solve the prob- 
lem — where is the artificial lesf to come from? 



200 DOWN to The SEA 

Here, then, is a life which offers faciHties 
for the employment and development of every 
faculty a man possesses. 

Nothing need be wasted in Labrador. 



XIII. 

Friends and Foes of the Labrador. 

1WAS lying at anchor under the shelter of 
a group of rocky islands well down the 
East Labrador coast. We had just been 
doctoring among the numbers of fishermen 
that make this their headquarters for the sum- 
mer fishery. As we landed, a thin column of 
smoke over the southern horizon heralded the 
approach of the fortnightly mail, which was 
overdue. I was away visiting a sick woman, 
whom we had to send to the hospital, when 
the mail steamer sounded her syren off the 
harbour. Before I got aboard the Hospital 
steamer, the mail-boat had again departed. 
My arrival over the rail was greeted by a 
square-shouldered, keen- faced young fellow of 
twenty-five. 

Clothing of civilization! Who can this be? 
I suppose I looked it. For he volunteered the 
information : 

201 



202 DOWN to The SEA 

"I'm the man you wired for." 

"Wired!" 

"Yes. Don't you remember? To Mont- 
real." 

"What's your Hne?" 

"I'm an electrical engineer." 

"And your name?" 

"X ." 

"Right. Excuse me half a minute." Div- 
ing into the chart-room, I seized the letter file, 
and soon hunted up his letter, dated January 
6th, marked "Received, July loth." Present 
date is August 6th. 

Briefly, what he had to say was, what I 
would every man could say: "My object in 
life is to make it tell as much as I can." 

Apparently he was just free of any personal 
ties, and so able to stand his own expense. So 
he thought an engineer would find a place 
down here where there would not be a man 
in the next street able to do things better than 
himself. Preferring another guerdon to dol- 
lars, he had written his letter, and my wire 
had filtered back in the course of time, saying, 
"Come right along." 

Now it is often charged to Christian mis- 
sions that men go into them because they can- 
not get anywhere else, or for what they can 



FRIENDS and FOES 203 

get out of it. I think the latter is the com- 
monest accusation, because the weakness of 
intellect idea has been abandoned more or less 
of late, as the truth gets known about the type 
of men who are out in the foreign fields. 

On the Strathcona we have an electrical 
apparatus and X-ray installation for our medi- 
cal work, and the other electrical fittings help- 
ing us to make our work more effective and 
up-to-date. It was out of order, and none of 
us knew how to put it right. 

Friend X has just emerged from the 

engine-room rather hot and dirty, because the 
dynamo has been stuffed up in a corner above 
the condenser. But he has put that electrical 
apparatus right, and I think he is just as sat- 
isfied as if he had an extra dollar or two, and, 
perhaps, he has just as much right to be 
thought sane, in spite of it. We have laid 
before him the work we can give him to do, 
and which we cannot get done, if he doesn't 
do it, because we cannot afford it. He has 
decided as soon as our sea freezes us out 
J (which it does not do before December) to 
^run up to Montreal and get some more tools. 
It appears to us all that he is going to make 
himself tell somewhat in our little corner of 
the earth during the next twelve months. 



204 DOWN to The SEA 

What enables me to give the time to write 
this letter to you is, that there is a Harvard 
medical down in our surgery, interviewing the 
fishermen, who have been coming aboard since 
morning for various ailments. He is a vol- 
unteer for exactly the same reason. 

When I left the little hospital on Caribou 
Island there were two young fellows from 
Bowdoin University staying there, recommend- 
ed to us by President Hyde as two of "the 
strongest men he knows in the University." 
They are not engineers, and they are not doc- 
tors. You might say they are just "digging," 
or doing anything else that comes along. As 
a matter of fact, the day I left they were act- 
ually digging out the foundation for an open- 
air shelter, which has since been completed. 
It is a very cute arrangement, and serves both 
for our convalescents and our tubercular 
patients — beds and all. It is going to be an 
uncommonly forceful sermon to a very large 
number of people on the benefit of the fresh 
air, sunshine, and the simple life. I ought 
to have said that these men seemed to me 
to be the kind of men the world wants more 
of. 

They are not making any dollars either. 
Not that I am against making dollars. They 



FRIENDS and FOES 205 

have g-ot to be made, and God bless every one 
who makes them. 

After the winter on the north Newfound- 
land shore, when this hospital boat came out 
of winter quarters, I would have had to close 
the hospital there, as we did last summer, for 
the want of a man to carry on the work while 
we were afloat. But we were able to hold on 
till, at last in June, another medical volunteer 
stepped ashore from our tardy mail-boat 

We were rather hard put to it at the time 
for a nurse, and the new volunteer began by 
thirty-six hours without sleep, taking a night- 
watch by an unconscious fisherman landed 
from a schooner the same day. 

When last I saw him, he had just been there 
six weeks. We had been in twice to empty 
the hospital, by carrying the patients to the 
next northern hospital, as he only had one 
nurse, and she a volunteer from England. The 
daylight was already coming over the hills, 
and the doctor was standing by the bed of a 
child of about eight years with acute osteo- 
myelitis. He had opened abscesses in eight 
places, both arms, both legs, both thighs, his 
back and head. The child was too ill to move, 
and our volunteer was bound on saving him. 
Certainly he was only a fisherman's boy, and 



2o6 'DOWN to The SEA 

the doctor won't get the fee that Lorenz re- 
ceived from Armour; but he will get a fee 
that will satisfy him all right if he pulls that 
child through. Because that child should have 
died otherwise. He told me he belonged to 
a Christian Endeavor band. I don't know 
which ecclesiastical denomination. But it 
seems to us down here to breed the right kind 
of Christian. 

There is an orphanage on the hill above the 
hospital, and in this we have got a small col- 
lection of waifs and strays. They are getting 
education, and they are getting food and cloth- 
ing instead of semi-starvation and the liability 
to consequent tubercular trouble so common, 
alas! among our poorer brethren, even in this 
wonderfully healthy climate. These are in 
charge of a lady of education and means from 
England — a lady of social standing — who has 
come out to live amongst us because she thinks 
she can make her life tell more here than 
where she was at home. Those orphans seem 
mighty fond of her, too. 

I am not going to multiply instances. My 
contention is that the missionary life is a sane 
life, whichever way we look at it. It does not 
really need the story of a social degenerate 
of the extreme type to convince reasonable 



FRIENDS and FOES 207 

minds that man can better serve the purposes 
he was made for by living for other ideals 
than those, alas! which are "normally" con- 
sidered sufficient. 

Of course, we can enjoy the spirit of games. 
Three of us have carried our university colours 
for athletics. Any of us can do our share 
with a rifle when a good shot means venison 
for dinner, or sealskin for a new pair of boots. 
We landed as many fine salmon the other 
evening, fishing in one of our rivers, while 
our steamer was loading wood near by, as did 
a man of wealth whom we found from Eng- 
land fishing in the same pool, and we did not 
require any stronger tackle than he did. He 
is fishing there yet, and heaven only knows 
what he is going to do with his salmon. We 
had good use for ours. He was out fishing 
last year, and the year before. And it does 
not seem, as one gets older in life, that any 
sport, however manly, should assume the na- 
ture of a recurring decimal. One reason why 
I can recommend the missionary life to any 
man is because in most of the fields he will 
find an ample scope for any and every talent 
he possesses. I used once to picture to myself 
that it would have been great to have been the 
modern Yankee at the Court of King Arthur. 



208 DOWN to The SEA 

You can sample that pleasure in most of the 
mission fields. Indeed, they call for the very 
best that the very best men can give them, and 
in return they give men, who may have every- 
thing else in the world, things better than they 
can get in any other way, and make them into 
that, perhaps, nothing else can make them 
into. We have now on this coast four small 
hospitals, one hospital steamer, and two motor- 
boats, besides our industrial work. 

The basis of altruistic work, to say nothing 
of the primal reason for all Christian effort 
to help others, is the fact that we hold that 
God seeks, nay needs, our co-operation and 
our help in the deadly struggle with the forces 
of evil. The time, the energy, the unpaid-for 
devotion shown by many in their endeavour 
to improve our laws, our public health, our 
national safety, and to further our advance 
in civilization, mean that men recognize that 
the problem of human life involves work for 
the general welfare and not merely for self- 
advancement. Personally, I believe that our 
best thinking men who give their lives to these 
matters are not actuated merely by the desire 
for office, for remuneration, or for praise, but 
they are in the work because they wish to con- 
fess thereby that every man is bound, so 



FRIENDS and FOES 209 

far as he is able, to co-operate with his fellows 
and with his Creator in abolishing the things 
that directly degrade and destroy his brethren. 

It is for this very primal reason that I hate 
most of all the traffic in intoxicating liquors, 
and for this reason that we have no use for 
it among those who "go down to the sea in 
ships," or among men who need, for the physi- 
cal emergencies of their lives, every ounce of 
vitality they possess. That is why we not only 
decry its use, but we dread its appearance 
among our trappers as well as our fishermen. 
These men, often alone, face in the bitter cold 
of our winter endless miles of barren wastes, 
and live for weeks tramping the woods in the 
ordinary routine of their calling. They leave 
wives and children behind them, and it would 
be nothing short of disastrous if they carried 
alcohol with them, or enfeebled their vital 
powers by its use in any way. 

I remember a doctor even who "took a glass 
occasionally." I know it hardly does to sug- 
gest that a man of that rank of life is in dan- 
ger of getting drunk, yet he is by no means 
the only man of my profession whom I have 
known living in a hell on earth through al- 
cohol. This man was found drunk on the 
snow one night. He had been having "a good 



2IO DOWN to The SEA 

time" with some "friends." Both his feet were 
so badly frozen that they had to be cut off, 
and he had to make the rounds of his patients 
in a country practice for the rest of his life 
on artificial legs. I knew this poor victim 
personally. 

The worst of alcohol as a poison is that it 
does not kill at once, and death when it comes 
is a mere detail compared with the weary years 
of misery, struggle, failure, and remorse. It 
leaves all the while the consciousness of the 
awful evil it is making the man to his little 
world; it makes him suffer with the suffering 
he himself is inflicting on his loved ones, till 
often enough he seeks in self-murder an escape 
from his hell on earth into — what, beyond ? 

Yet another poor victim in my own pro- 
fession — a brilliant student and accomplished 
gentleman. Surely he ran no risk. Yet after 
years of disgrace and shame — a ruined family 
and a blasted life — I saw him lying with a 
fractured skull, dying. He had fallen drunk 
down the steps of the government mail vessel 
on which he was then credited Medical Officer 
of the crown. 

Labrador is, from a health standpoint, an 
exceptionally good country. We have no en- 
demic diseases; our dogs do not suffer from 



FRIENDS and FOES 2H 

rabies; our mosquitoes carry no malaria; the 
leprous bacillus has never reached our shores. 
The specific fevers that visit us come with 
the arrival of our summer visitors. When we 
are isolated in winter we are safe from the 
assaults of cholera, smallpox, and scarlet fever. 
Our very isolation is our salvation. 

A short while ago, a schooner flying in hot 
haste before the breeze brought up close to 
one of our little hospitals. \No sooner was 
she anchored than the skipper came hurrying 
up to the doctor in charge. 

"What is the matter, skipper, that you are 
in such a hurry ?" 

"Well, Doctor, there Is smallpox in our har- 
bour, and you are wanted at once." 

"Smallpox ! How did that get there ?" 

"Oh, it comed in a schooner from Quebec, 
and now my Johnny is down with it, and they 
says as two men on schooners has got it from 
her also." 

Any sane person would admit it was worth 
while going down to that harbour, seizing that 
schooner, towing her away into a deserted 
bay, where she could do no harm, and throw- 
ing the infection, as far as possible, into the 
sea, because we were dealing with an organic 
poison. No one would suggest leaving such 



212 DOWN to The SEA 

a vessel to scatter her deadly influence and 
then content oneself with trying to convert 
"back to health" the victims. The damage 
and loss was so obvious and the cause of the 
damage was so traceable that when we had 
finally burned everything that we suspected 
as dangerous, we considered that our treat- 
ment was strictly scientific, and it received 
universal commendation. And had we been 
able to prove that the owner of that vessel 
knew of the poison he was sending down to 
us on board it we would have gone for him 
for murder, for seventy-one fishermen died 
of it. 

A few weeks later, a quiet, elderly, white- 
haired fisherman, who had an invalid wife de- 
pendent on him, was suddenly landed at the 
same hospital from a vessel. 

"What's the matter with John? It must 
be something very bad that has brought him 
here on a stretcher in the middle of the fish- 
ing season." 

"Well, Doctor, he has broken his leg." 

"Broke his leg ! How on earth did he come 
to do that?" 

"Well, you see, a schooner corned in. Doc- 
tor, with a drop of the drink aboard, and Pat 
Grady got taking some, and he knocked the 



FRIENDS and FOES 213 

old man over the stage-head. No, he ain't a 
fighting man, but the liquor made a very devil 
of him." 

This meant, in a man of over seventy years, 
nearly twelve months before he would walk 
again, and cost him the loss of at least one 
fishing season. I knew what it meant to his 
wife. 

Was it fanatical and unscientific to hasten, 
as we did, to the harbour, to seize on the sup- 
ply of alcohol in the schooner, to carry it to a 
place where no man dwelt, and tip the infec- 
tion into the ocean? In this case, the poison 
was a chemical one. 

In the first case, we had no wish to punish 
the dangerous vessel, for the harm was done 
in ignorance ; in the second case, our blood was 
boiling, for the beast that was doing it was 
doing it for dollars only, blood-stained dol- 
lars, and, moreover, he had not the humanity 
to say he was sorry. 

The dangerous subtlety of the thing makes 
one hate it the more, for it comes ever in the 
guise of a good friend. The tempter, with 
the idiotic laugh of the stale joker, calls it "a 
drop of the good craythur," glibly plagiarising 
the old lie, "It does no one any harm." And 
so it makes it hard for the modest, retiring 



214 DOWN to The SEA 

nature of a simple young fisherman to appear 
ostentatious and unfriendly by refusing *'just 
a little drop." Thus I have seen them buy it, 
and, alas, also learn to want it — at any price. 

Night was closing in as I lay at anchor one 
November evening in the harbour of one of 
these charming little fishing villages. I was 
just going below to turn in when I heard the 
bump of a boat alongside, and I saw a woman 
alone climbing up the companion ladder. 

"Can I go below, Doctor? I want to speak 
to you alone." 

"Why, certainl,y come along down. What 
is the trouble?" 

"It's my Willie what's brought me here to 
see you. You knows him. The men says as 
some one is stealing their fish what is drying 
on their 'flakes,' and they be threatening to do 
dreadful things if they catches un." 

"What has that got to do with your Willie? 
I am sure he would never steal a pin's head." 

"No, no, t'ank God. My boy never give 
me a day's trouble in his life. There never 
was no tievin' here. But, Doctor," and she 
leaned over to whisper in my ear, for fear the 
very walls should hear, "my Willie have come 
home with liquor on him on times of late. I 
knows he have nothing to pay for it. I corned 



FRIENDS and FOES 215 

alone, Doctor, and in the night, for fear the 
men should suspicion me. You will help me, 
won't you, Doctor?" and she broke down and 
cried bitterly. 

I comforted her as well as I could and then 
sent her ashore. 

While I listened to the plash of her oars, as 
that gentle mother rowed ashore alone in the 
darkness, I felt as I felt before, that this liquor 
is ten times more dangerous even than small- 
pox, for it damns the body and the soul as 
well. 

Last year I seized from an illicit saloon 
quite a large consignment. In it was a large 
barrel of rum which I had rolled out on the 
end of our wharf. There was a group of 
fishermen standing there, and all were wonder- 
ing what I was going to do. I wished to 
preach a sermon to them on what I considered 
the fitting and most sensible disposal of this 
chemical poison. It was impossible for me to 
suggest as a scientist, or, let me say, as a 
physiologist, or as a rational human being, 
much less as a follower of Christ, that this 
stuff should be poured down the throats of 
men. No, no, we knew better than that. We 
borrowed an axe from one of the group, and 
smashing in the head of the barrel, let it run 



2i6 DOWN to The SEA 

out into the ocean. Was that unscientific or 
fanatical, in view of what we knew about it? 
Wasn't that the best way of regulating the 
liquor traffic among us where all knew it was 
a matter of life and death to many of us? 



XIV. 

The Close of Open Water. 

ONCE more we are landsmen. Once 
more our six short months afloat is 
over and the little Straihcona is once 
again safely tied alongside the wharf, the 
planking of which is already covered with the 
snow of approaching winter. 

As we passed into this, our last harbor be- 
tween the two great towering cliffs overhang- 
ing the narrow entrance, and as the Capital 
City opened out all round us, leaving us right 
in its busy midst, we seemed suddenly shut off 
as it were by closed gates from the restless 
life beyond, from the field of activities which 
till a moment ago had been absorbing all our 
interests. We seemed to have suddenly 
reached the horizon, and passed directly into 
a new life, for into this fair harbor no rough 
seas can reach. There are no rocks to fear — 
no shoals to shun — the anchor once down in 
217 



2i8 DOWN to The SEA 

this harbor we no longer fear that our little 
vessel will drift from her moorings in the 
hours of darkness and sleep. Once lowered 
it will hold where you left it, till you weigh it 
again yourself on the way to some new field of 
labor. 

A sense of tension relieved comes over one, 
and for a brief while thankfulness for rest. 
But almost at once a new feeling chases this 
away and one's mind flies back in review over 
the experiences of the past. What a new light 
seems to be thrown on the relative importance 
of things outside "the narrows." There grad- 
ually creeps into one's reverie the shadow of 
a desire, in spite of the rest and peace, that 
some of the opportunities might come back 
just once more. 

But the iron mooring chains are fast to the 
great gump heads of the wharf — the sails are 
already unreeved — the ship dismantled — the 
very funnel covered in. The last mile stone 
is passed — the last chapter closed. What now 
is the live issue? 

It has been suggested that we should ask 
His Excellency the Governor, viceroy of the 
King, to inspect the little ship. But when at 
length I put it to our good skipper, he pro- 
tested, as I had half expected. "She looks too 



The CLOSE of OPEN WATER 219 

much as if she had been through a mill, Doc- 
tor. She will look better after we have painted 
her in the spring." 

In truth there was no denying it, for she 
looked as if she had just come out of battle. 
The topmasts had been struck for the late gale, 
and the dainty rigging we sailed out with had 
been stripped off and stowed. Our ragged 
remnant of a flag fluttered now from an im- 
promptu staff, which, lashed into the large top- 
gallant iron, looked lost and forlorn. The 
masts were grimy with smoke, and weathered 
and salted with the sea spray. For the con- 
tinuance of heavy easterly weather had given 
the men no chance to scrape down during the 
voyage home. As for her deck houses, the 
varnish, where any was left, had assumed the 
color of skimmed milk from the continued 
driving sleet and spume. Up to two feet above 
the level of the rails most of it had been 
scraped off bodily by the heavy deck loads of 
pine wood which we had been carrying out of 
the bays to the hospitals, as our last contribu- 
tion toward their winter comfort. The paint 
on her sides and bulwarks had paid such trib- 
ute to the sterns of countless fishing boats 
alongside that the once shiny black surface 
was mottled like a pane of frosted glass — 



220 DOWN to The SEA 

while below the water line — well, even there 
we would like to go over her on dock our- 
selves before others saw her. For we had 
struck twice on a nasty day in the late fall 
when we tried to navigate a part of the Gulf 
of St. Lawrence on the way to the new Ca- 
nadian hospital, a piece of coast that was new 
to all of us. She had, in fact, entered her last 
port like a man cut off without a moment's 
warning: thus she certainly was not, as some 
would say, ready for inspection. 

But as I stood on the wharf, running my 
eye over her familiar lines, to me endeared by 
so many happy days together, there was a sort 
of feeling that I would not have it otherwise. 
For she looked like a workman right from 
his field of labor. Her very toil-worn features 
spoke of things accomplished, and afforded 
some scant solace for the regrets that oppor- 
tunities had gone by. 

I could see again as I looked at her the thou- 
sands of miles of coast she had carried us 
along — the record of over a thousand folk 
that had sought and found help aboard her 
this summer — ^the score of poor souls for 
whom we could do nothing but carry them, 
sheltered in her snug cabin, to the larger hos- 
pitals where they could be better attended 



The CLOSE of OPEN WATER 221 

than by us at sea. I remembered visitors and 
helpers whom she had faithfully carried, and 
who were now scattered where they could tell 
of the needs of our folks, and bring them 
better help in years to come. I remembered 
the ministers and travelers that had been lent 
a hand as they pushed their way up and down 
our coast — the women and children and aged 
persons that she had carried up the long bays 
to their winter home, and to whom she had 
saved the suffering of the long exposure in 
small and open boats. One remembered the 
libraries she had distributed all along this 
bookless coast line, the children picked up and 
carried to the shelter of the Orphanage, the 
casks of food and drugs for men and dogs, 
placed at known rendezvous along the line of 
water travel, making the long dog journeys 
possible. How often had her now boarded-up 
windows lighted up her cabin for a floating 
Court of Justice in lonely places where, even 
if the judgments arrived at had been rather 
equitable than legal, yet disputes had been 
ended, wrong-doing punished, and the weak 
had been time and again helped to get right 
done them. 

One remembered how she had been a terror 
to certain evil-doers and more especially to 



222 VOWN to The SEA 

those wretches whose greed for sordid gain 
leads them to defy the laws of God and man, 
as they sell illicitly the poisonous drinks with 
which they lure brave men and true to their 
ruin. On a truck on the wharf beside me, 
even now, on its way to the police station, lay 
a consignment that our little ship on one of 
her raiding expeditions had saved from doing 
the damage it was capable of. How like a 
confiscated bomb-shell it looked. And one re- 
membered pleasantly the comment of a fisher- 
man friend on this, one of the most vital of 
her missionary efforts, at one specially trouble- 
some settlement : "Bedad, if the mission ship 
goes on like this long we won't be able to kape 
an ould bottle in the house to put a drop of 
ile in." '«*- 

Again I could see her saving from destruc- 
tion a helpless schooner abandoned by her crew 
and fast beating to pieces on a lee shore. I 
could see her cabin loaded with sacks of warm 
clothing for use in districts where dire pov- 
erty from failure in the fishing, or possible 
accident in their perilous work had left de- 
fenseless women and children to face the com- 
ing cold of winter unprotected, and among 
those who had benefited in this way were the 
crews of half a dozen unfortunate schooners, 



The CLOSE of OPEN. WATER 2231 

wrecked in the heavy equinoctial gale of last 
September. 

And beyond all the physical aid that had 
been rendered, one remembered the many sor- 
rowful hearts to which she had carried mes- 
sages of comfort and cheer. To some dying 
she had brought the joyful view of the realities 
of life beyond, and to some stricken hearts 
bereft of the hand they looked to for protec- 
tion, she had brought with material help the 
ray of hope which God permits the hand of a 
brother to carry as possibly its most precious 
burden. 

The skipper, who had come to the rail to 
insert a fender between the streak of the wharf 
shores, noticed that I was still examining the 
ship, and interrupted my reverie. 

"Doesn't look exactly like a pleasure yacht. 
Doctor, does she?" 

"Indeed she doesn't, skipper," and I almost 
added, "thank God." For it is some years 
since I have had time to seek pleasure in that 
way. Somehow the idea of the mission 
steamer being a "pleasure yacht" grated on 
one's nerves. A "mere pleasure yacht" was 
in my mind, and rose to my lips too. For 
though some might not think of it, the true 
following of the Master makes men utilitarian. 



224 DOWN to The SEA 

His servants must "hustle" in this busy world, 
as do the servants of His enemy, a truth the 
middle ages did not appear to know. The 
Master's followers must have strong reasons 
to give themselves when they can afford to 
seek their pleasure as others do. 

Out of this very port she had sailed just six 
months ago, not knowing what she might be 
called upon to do or to face, before she could 
hope to get back to her haven of rest again. 
She had started with a high purpose, anxious 
to serve God by serving His brethren, seeking 
the joy which can only be won in one way. 
The same joy which the Lord has promised 
that His faithful children shall share with 
Him hereafter. The joy of toil here, and toil- 
worn rest hereafter. "The blessing of heaven 
is perfect rest, but the blessing of earth is toil." 

Our ship had stood forth a tiny speck in 
the great ocean, a thing that man's mind might 
well despise as ill calculated to achieve service 
of any value to the King of Kings. Pre- 
sumptuous it had often seemed even to us, as 
we thought of the great work to be done — of 
the uncharted shore, the countless delays, the 
thousands of scattered craft, the short season, 
the strong passions and the great temptations 
of the men that we purposed to try and win. 



, The CLOSE of OPEN WATER 225 

Moreover now, as the incidents of the sum- 
mer flitted in review before my mind, I could 
not but remember that twice we had struck 
rocks, once had been all but overwhelmed in 
a storm, several times had been astray in fogs, 
twice had broken down and for want of power 
had been ourselves forced to seek help and to 
lose time undergoing repairs. It seemed a 
poor record. 

, Just at this moment the wake of a ferry 
tug rocked the Strathcona, and the bump she 
gave the wharf called me back to the world of 
realities abruptly. After all she still lay there. 
A stout little steamer full of capabilities, ready 
and waiting for fresh responsibilities. The 
very bump called to remembrance the familiar 
saying of an old friend : 

"Look up, not down, 
Look forward, not back, 
Look out, not in. 
Lend a hand." 

The sluggish schooner in which we first 
sailed with one doctor, only enabling us to 
spend three months out of the twelve on the 
coast, had vanished, till now even in winter, 
in their distant stations in far off Labrador, 
at the time when all possible help from out- 
side is cut off, are three doctors and three 



226 DOWN to The SEA 

trained nurses, and many other agencies, all 
proclaiming with splints and bandages, with 
remunerative work, and cheaper flour, with 
good books and with simple toys, and in other 
ways, what God can do in spite of the blun- 
dering workmen. 

I fancied I could see written round the now 
silenced funnel the words of a familiar hymn: 

"Only an armour bearer, yet may I stand, 
Ready to follow at the King's command." 

God grant that when I come up for Inspec- 
tion, when my voyage is over, I may not 
fear the verdict. May the log-book record 
many a brother helped, and saved. For 
though He will see — as see He will — the dints 
in the planking and the scratches on the paint 
and spars — yes, even if they speak to Him 
while they remind us of the sorry contact with 
rock and shoal — still we have confidence to be- 
lieve that there will be nothing to dread from 
Him. 

"Yes, Yes, Skipper : God bless the old ship. 
Let her be inspected, I say, just as she is." 



THE END. 



/&X N 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




017 518 298 6 



